Recoating is the process of restoring the primary coating to stripped optical fiber sections after fusion splicing.
It is often desirable to perform a proof-test after recoating, to ensure that the splice is strong enough to survive handling, packaging and extended use.
Recoated splices can usually be coiled into a tight radius because the recoated fiber section is just as flexible as the original polymer coating.
Recoats are e.g. employed in the assembly of undersea optical fiber cables where high fusion splice strength is already necessitated by stringent reliability requirements.
The first commercial optical fiber recoaters were developed by the Swedish firms Nyfors Teknologi AB and LM Ericsson in the late 1980s for the telecommunications industry.