powdercoat or no?

[martyf]

to powder coat or not.............

Im at odds if I want to powdercoat everything on my chassis or just paint it and all the gear.................

what would you do?

 

[DaddyT]

I would powdercoat but the wallet tells me otherwise.

 

[Mr.Crown]

You're in aviation...

And you know there's some bullet proof mil spec paint out there. Surely there must be some time-x'd paint kicking around your hangar???


Just sayin'...

 

[RPM]

I vote go with the paint. I don't like powder! Powder looks good, but it fades in sun light. If it scratches you cannot touch it up as you could paint. Same if you need to add a bracket or a tab later on, or make a repair.

 

[Old Iron]

Paint

 

[lowbudget50]

I powder coated my frame and like it alot. I painted the axle and A arms. Its holdin up very well. Just my 2 cents

 

[Neto]

I have worked in both the electro-plating and the powder-coating fields, and both have of the tendency to coat the most accessible points more heavily, and the crevices least - the opposite of normal paint. There are tricks we used in plating to get better coverage inside cavities, and in powder-coating as well. (You could sort of try to float the powder in, instead of pointing the gun straight at the area. In plating, we often used a small anode which we would hold inside a cavity or crevice, to get better coverage in those areas. This was mostly with cad plating.) All the powder coating we did was custom work, so we didn't have any automatic booth (with a bunch of guns shooting powder), so I don't know if that would give better results. (The boss was also reluctant to invest in improvements to the line, so maybe others have been able to deal successfully with these problems.) But I have also noticed that mass-produced parts that were powder-coated show the same tendency to rust in those areas where we also had trouble getting good coverage.

Back in the early 80's when I was working on the frame restoration of my 46 Ply (still haven't finished the body) you could still get Zinc-Chromate paint. That's what I used, and it's what I'd use again if it is still available. (Someone made a remark about you being in aviation, so maybe you can get it, even if the average person can't.)

During the time I was working at this powder-coating place I built and powder-coated a Reece hitch for our minivan, and the paint has come off in sheets. It was new steel, but we didn't have a sand-blaster, so it was just wire-wheeled & run through the paint line wash. I may have also cleaned it first with Xylene, I don't recall for sure. So based on my experiences, I believe paint is a better choice. (We do live in the "Rust Belt", so the hitch was exposed to a lot of road salt.)

 

[cycledog]

Painting would be easier. I do my own powder coating, never tried anything as large as a frame.

 

[zzrodder]

On properly prepared metal, powder coating is extremely tough and durable. That being said, due to the cost for having it done, I've never used it. Hard to beat the cost of a gallon of Rustoleum. I've painted parts with it that have spent years out in damp weather and it stands up very well, even with sloppy prep.

 

[Mr.Crown]

Back in the early 80's when I was working on the frame restoration of my 46 Ply (still haven't finished the body) you could still get Zinc-Chromate paint. That's what I used, and it's what I'd use again if it is still available. (Someone made a remark about you being in aviation, so maybe you can get it, even if the average person can't.)

QUOTE]

I did. I'm in aviation, and I can still get zinc-chromate primer, and some zinc-phosphate as well. It's pricey stuff, but it's bulletproof. I don't know if Americans have access to a product called Endura(Canadian made), but it's also a great option. Fairly reasonably priced, and this stuff sticks. Like any paint, the key is the prepwork. I suggest MEK on bare metal before applying the primer/sealer. Then use a degreaser like FinalWipe or suitable alternatives after primer prior to topcoat. You can also get clear for endura as well if you're into shiny stuff.

 

[donsrods]

I am on the side of liking powder coating, and am painting things less and less all the time. By the time you add up the prep work, the cost of primers and sealers, and top coat paint, then the cleanup time when done, powder coating ends up being a great deal. You drop off the parts, they sand blast and coat them, and a week later you pick them up all ready to install. I can't paint parts for what they charge me to coat them.

Don

 

[blurooster]

Never could afford powder or chrome, learned to love paint!

 

[donsrods]

Never could afford powder or chrome, learned to love paint!

At one time that might have been true, but have you priced primer, paint, hardener, thinner, and all the other stuff you consume anymore when doing a paint job ? We recently bought a quart of the hardener for Imron and it was $110............and that is just the hardener.

We took 46 pieces to the powder coater for my Son's rpu project, included in there was the frame, rear end housing, backing plates, springs, and a bunch of misc mounts and brackets, and the bill was only $1200. We couldn't have primed and painted all that stuff for that kind of money.

Don

This is the way we dropped the stuff off........

and this is how it comes back a week later......

 

[martyf]

SOLD!!

powder it is!!

 

[donsrods]

The other reason I love PC is that there is no mess. When we paint I have to drag out all the equipment and then clean it all up when we are done. Plus the overspray and bugs and dirt that get in the paint are no fun either.

Our PC guy sandblasts everything so we can deliver rusty stuff to him and it comes back looking like the pictures I posted.

Don

 

[zzrodder]

Wow Don, that really makes quite a case for powder coating ! I may have take another look at using it on my next build [S especially since the powder coater is only 2 miles from my house...

 

[martyf]

]

hey don What are you going to do with your third member? Cant really poder coat it can you?

I mean mines already assembled so I dont think I can have it powder coated??[S

 

[donsrods]

hey don What are you going to do with your third member? Cant really poder coat it can you?

I mean mines already assembled so I dont think I can have it powder coated??[S

No, that he had to paint separately. Pretty easy though, just stand it upright in a 5 gallon plastic pail and shoot it.

Don

 

[blurooster]

You guys are lucky, But I still get rattle cans for about $2.
Yours is pretty though.

 

[Neto]

I agree that proper prep is the key. If they will allow you in their shop, stand around a bit at the end of the wash line, or just before the booth, and watch to see if stuff comes through with light rust, and watch what they do if it does. Right after break time is a good time to check them out, because that extra time allows stuff to rust before it gets coated. Even new steel needs to be blasted, especially around welds. (Especially cold rolled steel, I think.)

It seemed to me (from my short experience in that job - 3 years), that putting powder on too heavily also contributes to flaking and a weakness for chipping. The thing about the place where I worked was that the boss was too tight to provide the proper materials. In plating work, the prep for aluminum as opposed to steel (or to pot metal, for that matter) is totally different. In the place where I worked in powder coating, everything went through the same line, same chemicals, etc. I know that the comparison here is not plating to powder, but with plating, you just can't plate over rust. But with powder, you can. Just make sure you find a good quality place that will stand behind their work. I think that there is also a type of primer that can be powder coated over, and still get the electrical current you have to have to get it to coat properly. (Maybe it is the same as the primer you can weld through, I don't know, but I also believe that it is an epoxy paint.) I just don't like the idea of single coating parts for something I'm putting that much work into.