Topic: Powder coating question - What setups do you guys use?

[Strife]

So, I went with Sherwin Williams auto paint for my current CB650 project, but for the CB750 I just bought I want to get into powder coating. I was curious as to what people use for their powder coating gun, where I can find a good selection of powders, and what you guys have set up as an oven to bake your parts.

[HB-1fan]

Here are the pros for small scale home powdercoating supplies. They also make an awesome tank sealer product! I have just used a crappy Craftsman(sears) powder gun to apply a Caswell "Translucent" powder over the "wet black" that is shown on this link and it was amazing. The wet black color was so good I almost left it at that. Used two double door Office style filling cabinets stuck together for an oven. Cut the back out of one and the front off the other. When you open the doors it is about 3' deep and 4' wide x 7' tall. Put a large cheap gas grill burner in the bottom and box it in with metal. It works very well!! Make sure it is well insulated or it will not get hot enough and use alot of propane. I will try once again to post pics of the color.

Hope this helps,
HB

[HB-1fan]

OOOPPPSSS!!! forgot the link!

http://www.caswellplating.com/powder/powder_coat.htm

[Strife]

Yea Caswell was one company I had checked out. They seemed to have some nice powder. I was actually looking at their powder guns as well, which range in the $200-300 arena. Anyone know if they are good quality? And is it worth paying that, or going with a cheaper setup.

Also, HB, I love your oven solution.

[verboten1]

powderbythepound.com is good stuff too.

I use a toaster oven, a harbor freight pancake compressor, and the HF powder coating system.

the system took some tweaking out of the box, but works quite well.


I have about $200 into the whole system, and can do up to 10X12 pieces in my oven

[super pasty white guy]

There's a post somewhere on the board about my DIY setup which uses a manual air pump, a high voltage converter, some canning jars and a toaster oven.  I don't remember the total cost, but below $50 easily, I think.

spwg

[mcuozzo]

I have a harbor freight gun.  Don't use their powders though.  Have tried eastwood, caswell and Columbia coatings powder.  I've decided to use Columbia's powder for most of my work. Good quality stuff, like the containers they use and they have great customer service.

I have a 5 HP compressor but it's mainly to use for sand blasting.  Powder coating requires only a minimal amount of air pressure so any compressor will do.

I picked up a used home oven off craigslist for $40.  Wired it in to my garage and it works flawlessly.

The prep of the part is the most important step.  Do you have a sand blaster?  I would recommend it.  By blasting the parts you get a good surface for the powder coat to adhere to.  

Make sure you remove all the dirt/grease before blasting.  Also before powder coating preheat the pieces to around 450.  This will bring any contaminants to the surface.  Then blast\clean the part again.  If you don't the contaminate can out gas when you heat the powder coated part and it will cause pitting/uneven surfaces or worse.

The steps then would be...

1 Degrease
2 Blast (I use coal slag)
3 Blow off with air
4 Rinse with Denatured Alcohol
5 Preheat
Repeat steps 1-5 until part is absolutely clean
6 Powdercoat

You'll have to experiment with your oven temps and your process.  But I preheat the oven to 450 while I coat my part.  I pop it in the oven till the surface turns into a liquid and flows out evenly.  I also measure the part temp with and IR temp gun.  If the part is near the cure temp (usually 380) then I turn the oven down to 380 for the cure period.

I hope that helps, any questions just ask here or e-mail me at mcuozzo@gmail.com

Here's my gallery with some samples...

http://gallery.sohc4.net/main.php?g2_itemId=306724

[Strife]

Wow thanks for all of the info, especially the companies that have quality stuff!