Plethora of Pleasing Powdercoating Particulars

Well, that title might be a bit over-stated, but I DID actually get to powdercoat today for the first time. After life interferred sooooo many times, I FINALLY was able to get my inlaw over so he could help me get the oven I scored from him converted over to propane. A couple of hours later, I was up and running. Cooking with gas as it were. Anyway, with that done, I was ready to give it a shot. I had projects that I wanted to do, but I didn't want to do them first whilst going through the learning curve. Sooooo, I drug out all my 9/16" combo wrenches, and gave each of them a stripe of red. Then I took my 1/2" combo wrenches and gave them a stripe of blue. (Well, now that little problem is solved! )
At that point, I was nearing my point of wanting to go in and relax for a bit, so I put some Satin Black in the gun, and coated my latest project, the quasi brushguard/light bar/winch cable protector. (For the lights that McRuff sold me last week.) I had welded it up last nite in anticipation of this. Anyhow, it being bigger posed more of a challenge. The size made it awkward to deal with. (I sense a hanging rack of some sort in my future...) But, I persisted, and put it in the oven. Less than 1/2 an hour later, it was done. I pulled it out and let it cool. I'm not completely happy, but not dissatisfied either. Have some nubs in the finish, and a couple of spots that I didn't get completely coated, but you know what? It's fine the way it is. You'd really have to look for it, and being aluminum, it's not going to rust anytime soon.

So, some observations....

"Satin black" is more of a semi-gloss, not really flat.

The oven I scored has a pretty strong fan that REALLY helps with the temp control. While I "think" it had something to do with the nubs in the Satin Black part, it didn't affect the wrenches one bit. I may turn off the fan until the powder starts to flow, then turn it on.

Mess? What mess? Get your air nozzle at 30psi, and "clean up".

The coating on the wrenches DOES chip/mar if you give them a good whack. But the ding is very small compared to what paint would do. AND, I'd be willing to bet that you couldn't start peeling this stuff off, even at the chip, with your fingernails, no matter how hard you tried. And this was on a shiny, polished, chrome like wrench. Try that with paint!

I can HIGHLY recommend one of the cheap powdercoating set ups from Eastwood or Columbia Coatings. If you can get a used household oven, you will be golden for a lot of powdercoating projects. I think I have about $300 invested (tax write-off for me), and I can easily see this being well, well worth it.

This next weekend is bolt heads from the Jeep weekend!

Here's the pics....

 

I am truly in a state of complete envy :twisted: Looks great!

 

Well I'll be geting one of those Eastwood guns pretty soon after seeing how easy you made it look on the 1st try. with a little practice you should do very good with what you've got.
Nice work Thad!!!

 

Mike, you may want to peruse these guys....
http://www.columbiacoatings.com/index.htm

I'm looking at my original invoice, and I got the gun, the handbook, a pound each of White, satin black and silver, and 1/2 pound each of Gloss black, clear, blue, yellow, white, red, and 1/2 pound each of textured rust, copper vein, white, black, silver vein, and putty. All for $219.95.

I am VERY happy at how easy it was. The only thing more difficult than the paint is getting the oven up to temp. A small price considering how much better powdercoating is than paint.

 

Can a "regular" oven be used for this? And if it can, will it stink the place up? I'd like to use your method for marking tools here....

 

R) R)

I can imagine your condo smelling like a body shop! Dog passed out in kitchen --Mrs goes "whats for um, dinner --Jeep parts???"

 

How well does the powder "stick" after you spray it, and before you bake it? I'd be afraid of it getting bumped, rubbed, windblown, or otherwise knocked off and having bare spots before I even got it to the oven. And is there some kind of chemical surface prep you have to do to make sure it's absolutely clean?

 

Yes, you can use a regular oven, just not one you plan on cooking food with again. While the powder coating is low VOC, the curing process does emit some into the oven. You don't want that in your food.

 

Actually sticks very well. It's initial bond is by static electricity. You ground the part, and the powder gun positively charges the powder as it comes out. Yes, if you brush it on accident, you'll be redoing that area, but a little caution/planning and you'll avoid that problem.

As far as wind, I have a fairly strong fan in my oven, and it didn't knock any of the powder off my projects.

The only prep I did on my test subjects was a thorough blast of brake cleaner to ensure that I didn't have any oil or grease on the parts. The aluminum light bar I had sanded down with 100 grit on my RO sander, and I'll be darned if I can see any of the sanding marks through the powdercoat.

As far as "stick to it-ness" let's put it this way. I had some overspray specks on one of the wrenches. It was a bright chrome wrench. I COULD NOT get that overspray off with my fingernails no matter how hard I tried. I did get it to come off by shaving it with a razor blade.

I'm convinced that this is probably comparable to the most heavy duty epoxy type paint you can get. You may chip it or scratch it, but I am confident that even if you do, it won't continue to flake off. I deliberately dinged a couple of the wrenches edge-to-edge, and while it does chip with a good blow, it's a very small chip right at the spot of impact. You may be able to carve it off with a razorblade, but I doubt that you could actually get it to peel off.

 

My sliders are powder coated. They have been scraped and gouged on many rocks. The areas surrounding the scrapes are still intact. No flaking or chipping. Of course the spots that are missing powder coating will need to be touched up with paint because they are starting to rust.

 

I thought steel needs a phosphate dip or something of the like before being sprayed????

 

Yeah, you may question my sanity, but I won't be spending as much time looking for the right wrench anymore! Heck, I could even do a stint with the Jeff Gordon crew now! R)



I did the most commonly used wrenches in my set. The "lines" you see in the sky blue wrench is were another piece I was doing bumped up against it before the powder flowed. Oh well. Otherwise, it's not as quick as painting so it's best to plan a whole series of items you want to do all at the same time. But there's simply no way that stuff is coming off anytime soon. I'm really happy with the results, especially when you consider that even my wife can find and hand me the "Red" wrench! R)

 

Neat!

 

Good idea not only does it help to be able to tell your helper but my eyes can't see the numbers anymore in some lights. Tha t would help there too.