Godfrey Hirst
Plant and Equipment Blast and Recoat

At Godfrey Hirst’s Wiri site, the cylinder tanks and dust collector housing had reached the point where their existing coatings had failed and rust had taken hold on the steel beneath. Left alone, that corrosion would have kept spreading, and simply repainting over it would have sealed the rust in rather than removing it, giving a false sense of protection that would fail again from underneath. The equipment also had to stay close to operational, since the work needed to be staged around Godfrey Hirst’s ongoing production rather than taking the plant fully offline for an extended period.

BlastOff used plant and equipment sandblasting to strip the tanks and dust collector back to clean, profiled steel, removing all the existing paint and corrosion rather than working around it. With the substrate properly prepared, a full three-coat protective system engineered for industrial exposure was applied to rebuild the corrosion barrier from the steel up, using protective coatings suited to the site’s demands.

The equipment returned to service with genuine long-term corrosion protection in place, rather than another coating layered over compromised steel.

For other manufacturers and industrial operators managing ageing plant, this project is a reminder that corrosion under a coating rarely announces itself until the coating has already failed. Scoping a comparable blast and recoat should start with an honest look at what is happening beneath the surface, how the work can be staged around production, and what protective system the equipment’s exposure actually warrants. Planning the sequence around operational hours, rather than around convenience for the contractor, is often what makes the difference between a smooth changeover and unnecessary downtime. It also pays to inspect complex geometry such as welds, seams and fixings closely during preparation, since corrosion often establishes itself in those areas well before it becomes visible on flatter surfaces.