so i'm thinking about buying my own powder coating sprayer and do it myself. i'm eyeing on this $69.99 unit from harbor freight http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/disp...temnumber=94244 then i'm going to get an used electric kitchen stove/ oven unit to bake my parts.. anyone's ever done it this way? curious to see if it's easy enough for me to do all that myself.

thank you all in advance for your input

go for it man ...I will bring you all my parts

haha.. coo!

hey oldschool dude, you gonna be at the la autoshow media days? i'll be there on the last media day thursday for designer day. will you be there still? we could meet up..

When I rebuilt my Corvette, I powdercoated everything that would fit in the oven... I use the Eastwood kit and an electric oven I scored for free.

Steel works great... cast iron, no matter how much I sandblast it, rust seems to come back, even under the powdercoat. You'll get great results if you sandblast everything before you powdercoat it.

Back when I had a Triumph TR-250 there was a guy with a small powder coating
setup as I recall who used to coat parts for many of the other members. It seems
to me that community is similar to this one in that a number of people have
developed expertise in particular areas and made a sideline (or mainline) business/
hobby out of providing services or parts to the community at reasonable prices.

So don't be so quick to dismiss oldschool's offer to bring you his parts. It might
at least defray the cost of the oven, the unit and the powder. In a couple years
you could be the powder coating go-to guy.

Skip

BTDT It's easy. But it's also fiddly and time consuming. You have to be very careful getting parts into the oven without knocking or rubbing the powder off. And if you're doing a lot of parts it takes a while. All of my parts were glass bead blasted first BTW.

There is a "tech shop" here in the Bay Area where a person can go and use their sand blasters, powder coaters, lifts, tools etc.
Unfortunately for me I found them after my project was finished.
http://techshop.ws/

If I wanted to powdercoat an engine lid, what would be my options? Obviously the size is an issue. I have quite a few I would be interested in doing this to.

Perhaps McMark will chime in here. He built his own powdercoating oven out of plywood and insulation and oven parts. I think he can fit items as big as a trailing arm.

For a one-off, I'd take it to a local powdercoater.

I bought and have used the HF powdercoat gun. It works great on steel and aluminum. However I would recommend using the powder from Eastwood, they have a better selection of colors and finishes and it seems to hold up better than HF's. You can pay more for a gun, but for a home shop the HF unit is more than adequate...daveyboy

Eastwood Ford engine blue is a dead-on match for Mexico Blue (at least the blue that is on my taildragger).

I've got the HF unit from a couple years ago. Works fine. You MUST blast your parts or the results will be so-so.

I get my powder on eBay by the pound; any color of the rainbow is available and generally cheap. I've bought a lot of powder from Columbia Coatings. I'm planning to powder coat a spare set of Mahle wheels I have with this special "chrome" powder I have. It actually looks more like gleaming polished aluminum when cured.

Go for it!!

We do all are own power coating at my shop, we actually have used the HF gun for about 4 years now, but we just upgraded. It actually works very well for how cheap it is. Columbia coatings on ebay is a great source for powder, there prices are great and have a ton of colors, getting quality powder makes a big difference. And blasting the parts are a must, don't waste your time coating them unless you blast them. Good luck with it, it is the only way to go.

yes in fact I was thinking of what day I wanted to go...lets meet up.

Find the HF 20% off coupon on line. Even cheaper!

Thats a pretty cool place. Guess i'm lucky we have a hobby shop here at work every tuesday. 10 bucks a year, and 2.50 an hour when your working ! Even have a old CNC mill to use ! I'll be there tonight bead blasting my new 2.0 tins.

I've got the Eastwood kit and an elec., oven i scored for free. I also have access to a professional oven for bigger parts.

It's quick and easy to do. The one thing to make sure of is that the parts are CLEAN. before you bake.

You can Bake the part before you put the powder on, this will get rid of some of the impurities and give a little better finish.

Eastwood also carries high temp. coating, good to 1200*. I used this on the HE's, it worked great. It still looked good after 4k miles.

sAweet! thanks for all your great input guys!! ya i'm gonna go for this for sure then. that's good to know that HF unit is a decent product. i did in fact pick up a sand blasting cabinet and should be ready to go today. that's what triggered me to think about buying my own powder coating sprayer.. i'm gonna practice on 2 sets of vw engine tins on my vw bus and perhaps i could get good enough that i can help some of you guys out later on..

i'm planning on picking up an electric oven for now.. though i'm not sure what degree these parts need to be baked in and how long to bake them.. i'd certainly hope the good ole kitchen stove/oven unit is good enough. but even at that, they're average size is about 24" or so wide, so i should be able to bake a good amount of parts for the engine and some suspension stuff, up to rims too perhaps

thanks for that good tip mike!

wow that rock! thanks for the tip, i'm so there!!

Re getting parts into the oven: I use baling wire to hang my parts from an oven rack, and shoot the powder while they are hanging from the rack. Then I just move the rack into the hot oven and bake them. Ta daaa!

that's a very smart idea!!! i'll def keep that in mind, thanks!!

I have a 20% coupon in PDF if you want it.

My wooden oven works great. You can build it for any size you want and only costs $50 or so.

oh sheah!! i thought it was just on their website. i've been searching for it all this time... lol

sure, i'll pm you my email. thanks again!!

wow! $50?? how do you do that?!!

Ya, c'mon, spill it man !

No problem!

When shooting the powder, I put the rack across the top of 2 sawhorses. That allows good access to the parts.

I don't do much powder coating and don't have room for a big oven but there is a shop here in Paso Robles that has ovens big enough to do an entire truck frame. If I need something done, I take it there. I understand you can also use a cheap toaster oven for small items.

Cheers, Elliot

Been doin a little reading on it . Guess you can actually use a couple of those 500 watt halogen work lights too. I'm thinking modifying an old file cabinet with those in it.

I hope this isn't too much of a hijack but..... what temperature do we need to properly cure the power coat and for how long do you need to hold it?

according to the eastwood video, 20 minutes past the point where the powder turns to liquid...at 400 degrees

oh not at all! i was asking the same question in one of my replies too.

the HF powder coating oven has a max of 480 degrees, so sure sounds to me a regular cooking oven could do the job..

sAweet!

perhaps that'll be my experiments on different degrees and see what happens..

You need to read the data sheet that comes with the powder. Different manufacturers recommend different temperatures. I've seen 375 to 425. I've used Eastwood's powder, Columbia Coatings and one other whose name escapes me at the moment.

And I use an standard kitchen electric oven I bought for $15 at a garage sale. And you can fit a control arm in a standard oven. BTDT

2x4 framing. Plywood box. Mineral Wool insulation (2" thick sheets, good to 1200 degrees). A scrap of sheet metal on the bottom (unnecessary?). And a standard oven heating element.

The only complaint I have is that I never acquired a thermostat, so I have to manually regulate the temperature any flipping the switch on and off. But it only has to stay around 400 (give or take 50) for a few minutes, so it's not that bad. Oh, and there is a 2" vent hole drilled in the top. Some sites I read said that venting the gasses was a good idea. Can't say one way or the other, I just did it in case.

The outside of the box doesn't get hot AT ALL. In fact, you can't even tell it's on by touch.

I hang the parts from the rod inside. I read the temperature from a BBQ thermometer that pokes through the door (look close in the pics).

If you get creative with hanging things at different heights, you can really cram a lot of stuff in there. Or buy a wire cooling rack to give you a grid to hang even more stuff from.

As mentioned above, I built mine specifically to hold a trailing arm. It's about 4' cube, IIRC. You can build something bigger and add more heating elements.

Build this thing at your own risk. You can catch things on fire, electrocute yourself, among other things.

Is that UL approved?

Many of you knew this was coming....

Bah! Humbug! Powder coating is for wusses.

Instantly recogognizable as non-factory.

Other than that, OK on parts that recieve no punishment from the road, but has problems where it gets hit with rubble & difficult to remove.

I would just ask this question - why deviate from a factory finish?
Pat

One of these days I wil meet you in person. I will have one painted part, and one powder coated part. YOU will have to tell me which is which.

From someone who has used both the Eastwood kit with a kitchen stove, and a professional setup ( 3000.00 gun and a 25 foot 600 deg booth ) I can tell you this much. The cheapo Eastwood gun and I'm sure the H.F. one, wil get the job done, BUT they do not lay down a really even coat, so don't expect it to look perfect. A kitchen stove works great, but you will quicly find the desire to coat suspension pieces, engine tin etc that won't fit. Then you will be searching for an industrial oven $$$$$$ Well once you have a larger industrial oven you will then want a better gun $$$$$$. The powder is extremely powdery so without some sort of ventilation, you can expect everything in a 6 foot radius to get a fine layer of powder on it.

Some parts I did when I did it for a living. All tin, fan housing and intake runners are coated.

Click to view attachmentI did these in the garage with a old house oven

Nuthin' but love for those who ask why deviate from stock. . . .

However, in the last 40 years there have been many advancements in coatings made. While the technology of our cars is set by the manufacturing date, time in the rest of the world continues to march on and better solutions are created. To me, it makes little sense to knowingly use an inferior product when a better thing is available at a reasonable cost. When the goal of a project is originality, then it makes perfect sense to use antiquated methods.

I'm just doin, my part to help your car become more valuable!!

Everything on this engine has been powdercoate, I did it with a sears powdercoating gun and a home oven.

I only have experience with Eastwood powdercoat... the gloss black seems to scratch rather easily. I wonder how it would stack up against a quality paint.

I get all my powders from Columbia coatings

http://www.columbiacoatings.com/