Managing Director Dale Windridge

Dale, pictured left, started his working life in a car repair workshop, learning panel beating, welding and spraying on Jaguars and Mercedes.

He spent his twenties and early thirties building 11m steel workboats, during which he acquired many fabricating skills and gained experience in general engineering. At the same time, he spent a lot of time at sea involved with salvage work. This included subcontract survey work for major construction companies. Projects included removing obstructions in the shipping lane with explosives.

Dale started Windridge Coatings with his father in 1986, using small and out of date machinery. By applying many of the wet spraying techniques learnt earlier to powder coating, he achieved the exceptional finish Windridge Coatings has become renowned for.

In 1989 frustrated at the limitations of their equipment, he designed and they built the first and still England's largest general-purpose box oven. As a result, they became pioneers for powder coating heavy and large structural steelwork.

The large size of components bought new problems. The components were too large to pre-treat by zinc phosphating complying with BS6497. In 2005 Dale became a pioneer again by branding a new approach to powder coating directly onto steel. The Tri-Resin™ Powder Coating System.

In 2009 Dale was awarded a patent for improving the thermal insulation of powder coatings. This improvement allows powder coating to be used on handrails that need to comply with the building regulations 2004.