Powder Coating?

9

99ishVR4

New member
First of all, I would like to say hey to everyone. I have lurked on autopia for years and for some reason never thought about signing up, until today anyways. I know its not exactly detailing related, but I was wondering if anyone did their own powder coating here? Its definitely more engine bay detailing related. I used to detail my engine bay all the time, at least once for every 2 exterior details. It never really popped until I started powder coating everything in the engine bay. Now my engine parts are as easy to detail as everything else. I love it. If anyone here powder coats or has thought about powder coating in the future, you should check out this powder coating guide I am working on: Powder Coating: The Complete Guide



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Why its so much easier to keep clean, lol :)
 
99ishVR4- Welcome to Autipia! Glad you signed up. Fellow engine compartment nut here :D



I've never DIYed the powdercoating, always farmed it out.



My only concern with it is the inability to touch it up; IME it's not always quite as indestructible as one might expect.



Are you currently DIYing it, or still at the thinking-about-it stage?
 
Accumulator said:
99ishVR4- Welcome to Autipia! Glad you signed up. Fellow engine compartment nut here :D



I've never DIYed the powdercoating, always farmed it out.



My only concern with it is the inability to touch it up; IME it's not always quite as indestructible as one might expect.



Are you currently DIYing it, or still at the thinking-about-it stage?
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Thanks, glad to see other people share the engine bay obsession.



I do my own powder coating, I started 2 yeara ago. You can touch powder coating up several ways. Touch up paint is the easiest, for those that do powder coating, and have access to the powderc you can mix up the powder with MEK and brush it on the chipped area. The MEK is said to chemically cure the powder. If the part is easily removed, you can scuff up the existing powder, and spray a 2nd coat, and cure it the oven.



Its really not as hard to touch up as you would think. I am impressed by its durability but it is not bullet proof. How the coating was applied also effects its durability.
 
Yep I have done alot of powder coating. Can't do it anymore at this point because I don't have a shop or garage. I was using one of those cheap Eastwood guns and had a kitchen oven with an insulated box built so I could use it with the door down to do bigger parts - "pregnant oven" I believe was the term for it. I've done alot of intakes, valve covers, a couple sets of wheels, motorcycle parts, bunch of other stuff. I liked doing it but one thing that drove me crazy was my OCD about getting even one little speck of dust in a part, I'd have to strip it and do it over even if you couldn't see the spot when it was installed lol. Once I get some shop or garage space again I'll probably start doing it again. One thing that really impresses me about it is how flexible the coating is. I took a piece of tin foil I had used for masking a part and was able to sharply crease the foil with my fingernails and it didn't crack or peel the powder coat. Also the range of colors and textures is amazing.
 
Richard Grasa said:
Yep I have done alot of powder coating. Can't do it anymore at this point because I don't have a shop or garage. I was using one of those cheap Eastwood guns and had a kitchen oven with an insulated box built so I could use it with the door down to do bigger parts - "pregnant oven" I believe was the term for it. I've done alot of intakes, valve covers, a couple sets of wheels, motorcycle parts, bunch of other stuff. I liked doing it but one thing that drove me crazy was my OCD about getting even one little speck of dust in a part, I'd have to strip it and do it over even if you couldn't see the spot when it was installed lol. Once I get some shop or garage space again I'll probably start doing it again. One thing that really impresses me about it is how flexible the coating is. I took a piece of tin foil I had used for masking a part and was able to sharply crease the foil with my fingernails and it didn't crack or peel the powder coat. Also the range of colors and textures is amazing.
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Awesome, glad to see another coater here. I have a similar setup. I'm always interested in pregnant oven setups, what type of box did you use, lol? I know the OCD feeling as well, after I found a stripper that actually worked on powder coat, it wasn't an impossible task to strip my parts anymore. The oil pan I posted above was redone 3 times. It had little craters everywhere from rust that I thought the powder would fill in, but the gloss black showed it big time. So I stripped it all, and used a thick powder primer, sanded all down, and it finally came out smooth, lol. I couldn't imagine not being able to coat after starting. I hope you get some garage space again.



Same here with the aluminum foil, I thought I finally got it to crack, but it was the foil that cracked, the powder was still fine.
 
99ishVR4 said:
I'm always interested in pregnant oven setups, what type of box did you use, lol?
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I made a 4 sided cube out of metal sheet rock corner bead and 1" thick polystyrene sheet insulation, the kind that's shiny on one side. I cut the corner bead up to make a frame and tack welded it together. Cut the insulation to fit in the frame and used metal tape to hold it in the frame. Then I cut out a little removable window like 3"x3" in the front of the box so I could stick my IR thermometer through it so I wouldn't have to remove the box to take temps. The box would sit on tip of the oven door when it was in the down position and pretty much doubled the size of the oven and for less than a $20 set up worked very well.
 
Richard Grasa said:
I made a 4 sided cube out of metal sheet rock corner bead and 1" thick polystyrene sheet insulation, the kind that's shiny on one side. I cut the corner bead up to make a frame and tack welded it together. Cut the insulation to fit in the frame and used metal tape to hold it in the frame. Then I cut out a little removable window like 3"x3" in the front of the box so I could stick my IR thermometer through it so I wouldn't have to remove the box to take temps. The box would sit on tip of the oven door when it was in the down position and pretty much doubled the size of the oven and for less than a $20 set up worked very well.
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Thanks for the info, I have been considering the best way to enlarge my current oven and that definitely seems like the easiest. Right now I have 2 home ovens, and my plan was to cut out one sidewall of each oven and place them side by side, attach the doors together so they open as 1, and seal everything off inside with sheet metal. Then brace the 2 ovens together with some angle iron. And then, turn the whole thing on its side to give me one tall oven.



Hopefully will have time for that this week. Sent you a pm btw.
 
David Fermani said:
... Tough as nails too.
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Eh, the powdercoating on my latest batch of Crown Vic upgrades (Addco swaybars, Eaton springs) wasn't so tough...unpacked 'em last week for the install and had to take them over to have my local guy redo because of chips/etc.
 
Have had a powder coat system for quite a few years, but never popped for an actual lab oven or small powder coat oven. Used the oven in the house.

After I moved here, made friends at a car show with a fellow who owns a commercial powder coat company 35 miles south of me.

When I need some done now days, take the part down, tell him the color and when they are running that color, he does it with them.

So far total cost has been a few lunches and drinks and one bottle of rye whisky, works for me.[/B]
 
Accumulator said:
Eh, the powdercoating on my latest batch of Crown Vic upgrades (Addco swaybars, Eaton springs) wasn't so tough...unpacked 'em last week for the install and had to take them over to have my local guy redo because of chips/etc.
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Unfortunately, not all powder coating is equal, and its usually manufacturers powder coating that is lacking. 99% of the time, they rely on a chemical per-treatment to provide adhesion instead of actually providing a good surface profile through media blasting, sanding, ect. Powder coating that has blasted metal underneath of it has proved to be much more chip resistant in my experience.



Could you see if what the metal looked like where your parts chipped? Was it smooth and shiny or textured and almost white?
 
Ron Ketcham said:
Have had a powder coat system for quite a few years, but never popped for an actual lab oven or small powder coat oven. Used the oven in the house.

After I moved here, made friends at a car show with a fellow who owns a commercial powder coat company 35 miles south of me.

When I need some done now days, take the part down, tell him the color and when they are running that color, he does it with them.

So far total cost has been a few lunches and drinks and one bottle of rye whisky, works for me.[/B]
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Can't beat a friendship like that, lol.
 
99ishVR4 said:
Unfortunately, not all powder coating is equal, and its usually manufacturers powder coating that is lacking. 99% of the time, they rely on a chemical per-treatment to provide adhesion instead of actually providing a good surface profile...
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Yeah, I figure they did the minimum just so they could say "powdercoated finish", figuring that few people really care about their undercarriages. Still, this was some terrible work.



And yes indeed, that surface-prep was exactly the problem. As soon as I saw smooth shiny metal on the chipped areas I was all :rolleyes: and knew it'd have to be completely redone. I had a good long, detailed talk with the local powdercoater, impressing upon him that, uhm....I'm not a typical customer ;)
 
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