Most parts that need plating also need paint, powder or a dry film lubricant. Most buyers source those from two different companies, in two different cities, with two POs and two chances for the schedule to slip. We do both.
A bracket gets zinc plated. Then it gets powder coated. Two suppliers, two quotes, two POs, two receiving docks, two chances for a part to sit on a shelf while somebody works out whose turn it is. The plating quote came back in a day. The coating quote took a week. Neither company will commit to a date until the other one does.
And when the finish fails, you get two explanations. The plater says the coating was applied over a contaminated surface. The coater says the chromate was passivated wrong. Both of them are certain. Neither of them is going to pay for it.
This is the ordinary condition of buying metal finishing, and most buyers have stopped noticing it. It is worth noticing, because it does not have to be that way.
Gleco is a third-generation family business. We run electroplating, anodizing and passivation in Rowlett and McAllen, and paint, powder and Cerakote through our coatings division a few minutes down the same street in Rowlett. Same company, same quality system, same certifications, one purchase order.
2220 Grisham Drive · Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex
3800 W. Ursula Ave · Rio Grande Valley
5020 Grisham Drive, Rowlett · our coatings division
Rowlett and the coatings plant are about a mile apart. A part that needs plating and then coating does not get freighted between states, packed and unpacked twice, or handed to a company that has never seen your print.
Processes have to happen in an order, and some of them have windows. A blasted surface has a limited time before it needs to be coated. A high-strength part has to be baked for embrittlement relief within a set period after plating. When one company owns the whole route, those windows are scheduling constraints. When two companies own it, they are somebody else’s problem.
One set of certs, one traveler, one company on the certificate of conformance. Your incoming inspection reconciles one document instead of matching two against each other and finding they disagree about the lot.
The single most useful thing about one supplier is that if the finish fails, there is exactly one company responsible for it, and it is the company that did both operations. That changes how a failure conversation goes.
Masking for plating and masking for coating are different problems on the same part, and they interact. Threads that must stay clear, bores that must not build, surfaces that need electrical contact. Solving both at once, on the same bench, is cheaper than solving each in isolation and discovering the conflict on the second operation.
For ITAR-controlled and defense work, every transfer between companies is a control point somebody has to manage. Fewer transfers is less exposure and less paperwork.
Two suppliers means at least two extra freight legs and two extra packing operations. Packing and unpacking is also where handling damage happens, and a plated surface is at its most vulnerable before it is coated.
Both finishes, one drawing, one RFQ. If the print calls out a plating spec and a coating spec, we read both. If it only calls out one and the part clearly needs the other, we will say so rather than quote half a job.
Some combinations do not work in the order they were written, and some should not be combined at all. That review happens before you have a PO, not after we have your parts.
A single delivery commitment covering the whole route, not two dates that have to be reconciled.
Our trucks, our packaging, our people. No third-party freight in the middle of your process.
Both operations on one set of documents from one AS9100D-registered company.
We would rather tell you this up front than have you find it out on a job.
There are specialty processes neither plant runs. If your part needs one, consolidating the rest of the route with us saves you a supplier, not all of them, and we will tell you that plainly rather than stretching to cover it.
If a finish is qualified on a defense or aerospace program at a specific approved supplier, requalifying it to consolidate is usually not worth what it costs. Consolidate the parts that are not locked down.
Some buyers deliberately split finishing across suppliers so one plant going down does not stop a line. That is a legitimate strategy and we are not going to argue you out of it.
What we will argue is that most parts get split across two suppliers by habit rather than by decision, and that habit has a cost nobody is measuring. It is worth measuring once.
Yes, and it is a large part of what we do. Zinc or zinc-nickel followed by powder or paint is the most common combination. Phosphate under paint is another. What matters is that the two processes are compatible and run in the right order, which is exactly the review that happens at quote time.
No. Gleco Paint & Powder Coating is our coatings division, in Rowlett, part of the same business. One company, one quality system, one purchase order. It has its own website because coatings buyers search for coatings, but you are dealing with the same people.
One, covering both operations, from one company. Tell us at quote time what your incoming inspection needs to see and it gets built into the routing rather than assembled afterwards.
It depends on the process. Zinc, zinc-nickel, electroless nickel, anodizing, passivation and chem film run at Rowlett. Precious metals, tin and Type III hardcoat run at McAllen. Coatings run at the Rowlett coatings plant. If a part needs processes from more than one, we move it — you do not.
Line-item pricing is competitive on its own merits, and you should compare it. The saving that does not appear on either quote is in freight, handling, receiving, expediting and the days a part spends waiting on the second supplier. Those are real costs; they just sit in a different budget from the one the finishing quote lands in.
Yes. Gleco is ITAR registered, and keeping the whole route inside one registered company means fewer transfers to control and document.
Powder, liquid paint, Cerakote, MIL-spec and CARC finishing, dry film lubricant and part marking all run through Gleco Paint & Powder Coating in Rowlett. The full detail — substrates, film builds, pretreatment, spec cross-references and a finish selector — lives on its own site.
One print, one RFQ, one date. If the sequence on your drawing will not work, we will tell you before you cut a PO.
Precision metal finishing since 1979. Plating, anodizing, coatings and passivation from two Texas plants.
Our paint, powder & Cerakote division: Gleco Paint & Powder Coating
Gleco Rowlett
2220 Grisham Drive
Rowlett, TX 75088
972-475-4300
Gleco McAllen
3800 W. Ursula Ave
McAllen, TX 78503
956-800-4069
