What are the steps in the galvanizing process?

In general there are four steps:

Pre-inspection – where the fabricated structural steel is viewed to ensure it has, if necessary, the proper venting and draining holes, bracing, and overall design characteristics necessary to yield a quality galvanized coating.

Cleaning – steel is immersed in a caustic solution to remove organic material such as grease and dirt, followed by dipping in an acid bath (hydrochloric or sulfuric) to remove mill scale and rust, and finally lowered into a bath of flux that promotes zinc & steel reaction and retards further oxidation of the steel… (steel will not react with zinc unless it is perfectly clean).

Galvanizing – the clean steel is lowered into a kettle containing 850 F molten zinc where the steel and zinc metallurgically react to form three zinc-iron intermetallic layers and one pure zinc layer.

Final inspection – the newly galvanized steel is sight-inspected (if it looks good, it is), followed up by measurement of coating thickness with a magnetic thickness gauge.