midwestjunk

iTrader: (2)

I have been thinking about buying the equipment to do powder coating myself.
I know very little about it so far. I have seen in the eastwood catalog you can get the kit with the gun and that box that has the wires to run the electric current thru the part for $100-$200. I assume its like a paint gun and you need an air compressor but what else do I need? I have an old oven that came out of my house i can use to bake the parts in, would that work for most small parts? Also i'm running out of room in my garage with multiple vehicles tore down, would it be harmful to set this all up in my basement or is there any fumes or problems with doing this indoors? I could easily build a small booth and rack to hang the parts in my basement.

anyone who has done theyre own powder coat chime in.

midwestjunk

iTrader: (2)

anyone?

craig382ci

iTrader: (5)

I have done some Powder Coating jobs. Some was my own stuff. That is what I done first. They are no fumes. You want to have your oven near where you do your PC. You need a water separater on your air compressor.

SilverGhost

iTrader: (53)

I would not reccomend coating inside your house, even in the basement. I started my company out of my garage at first, and that was enough of a horrific mess. Even with a booth with fans and filters and so forth. Powder has the consistency of household dust, it goes everywhere. There are no VOC's involved, but it still should not be breathed in, you don't want it floating around your home. Also many resins will smoke, some quite heavily, in certain powders while they cure, and most all of them ommit various smells, some very strong while curing. Again not something you want to fill your house up with from the basement. The process is much safer and more environmentally friendly that paint, but still hardly something you shoud be doing inside a home. However keep in mind that powder does have an explosion hazard, just like anytime there is a large concentration of dust in an area around open flame or sparks. Hence the reason you must use explosion proof fans in a powder booth. If you have anything in your basement such as a furnace or hot water heater, having powder floating around down there could be a hazard.

midwestjunk

iTrader: (2)

Thanks for the info. I had no idea. Definetly will make room in the garage if I try to do my own parts.

crookedbowtie

Make sure you have an outside exhaust fan on the oven. Sometimes the parts will smoke a bit. A open booth with an exhaust fan will help draw the powder towards the part. Some hooks attached to the booth, attached to the gun setup makes it easy to ground parts without annoying clip leads. Make sure you blast the parts (we use green diamond), clean or oxidized aluminum doesn't need blasted, and get ALL of the sand off. Everything must be conductive and if you need a little filler I have had luck using JB, solder, brass/silver brazing (works best) and of course welding. Oven at 400 degrees approximately 15-20 min. for thin stuff, longer for thick pieces. If you need to remove baked on powder use a cutting torch quickly moving over the surface until sparks disappear, blast, re-coat...it will save you a ton of time.

midwestjunk

iTrader: (2)

After the powder has cured what kind of heat can it withstand? I'd like to do engine parts, what if a bracket is close to the header/exhaust? Will it damage the finish?

SilverGhost

iTrader: (53)

Couple things.

No metal doesn't need blasting, doesn't matter if its brand new and clean. Blasting is not only for cleaning, but also for significant adhesion promotion. We have ran tests over the last few years to prove just how much a proper blast profile on any substrate enhances durability. Its significant.

Everything does NOT need to be conductive. ANY substrate that will safely handle the curing temps can be coated, just with non traditional application methods. See my work on factory and FAST intake manifolds for example. We have coated those manifolds, glass, types of woods, all kinds of things by getting creative.

Solder from our experience runs and ruins the powder at 400 degrees. We also use JB, brazing, and welding to fill.

15-20 minutes(or time, period) means nothing. Powder cures by part metal temp. Any new coater needs to keep an IR gun handy and learn to use it well. By well I mean its easy to get a false reading if you aren't careful, but I'll leave that alone for now. The weight, size and density of an item affects how long the part takes to get up to temp. If a powder's cure schedule calls for lets say 10 minutes at 400 degrees. That means the powder is properly cured when the part itself internally reaches 400 degrees and stays there for 10 min. That could take many times longer to accomplish on some parts versus others and needs to be monitored. Also need to take into consideration radiant heat from approximaty to your heating elements(unless you build heat shields) so as to not overcure one area of a part, and the rules of convection heat transfer when working with large parts and trying to get them up to part metal temp.

I would not personally torch any part to remove powder. That's what immersion chemical strippers were created for.

I'll try to check back again at some point if there's additional information I can share.

SilverGhost

iTrader: (53)

Check with manufacturer of powder for the specific heat capabilities.

crookedbowtie

We have aluminum parts out there over 10 years old that were not blasted with zero problems. I blast everything, but I know for a fact we have one coater that does NOT blast aluminum and has had zero problems. I am not promoting zero blasting, but for DIYs out there in their garage there are some things you can get away with. Always blast steel, but the oxidization on aluminum accepts powder very nicely.
As for solder running, I meant hard solder which is usually a silver,copper, and zinc mix with a little tin to lower the melting point. It has a much higher melting point. Usually around 700+ degrees. Soft solder, primarily tin and lead usually does have a melting point around 400 degrees and will cause problems, thanks for pointing that out, sorry for not being more specific. Hard solder also levels out flush better than soft.
Silver ghost is right about checking temps if you have all the right equipment, however for the layman you can tell when the powder flows out on a part. It starts to look smooth and glassy, if you start your cure time from there you will be fine. If in doubt a little extra time, as long as it is not excessive doesn't hurt.
A burn torch on steel parts removes powder coat nicely just remember to wear a respirator, similar to wearing gloves with chemical immersion strippers and do not use a burn torch on aluminum you will likely damage it.
Just remember there is more than one way to skin a cat.
I am extremely interested in non traditional application methods as I have never coated anything that wasn't conductive and would like to give it a try. Silver Ghost, can you please elaborate?

midwestjunk

iTrader: (2)

After I try some brackets and stuff in the engine bay I really want to do my fast intake manifold but plastics definetly take a non traditional way and I have no idea where to begin on it.

SilverGhost

iTrader: (53)

I'm sorry, but you are not correct about powder flow out vs cure schedule. Powder will fully flow out to a wet look at 200-215 degrees PMT, it will start to gel at 170 or so. On a 400 degree PMT cure schedule that's only half of where it needs to be. So if you started your timer at that point of full flow out, lets say 20 minutes by your earlier description. Assuming the powder is a 10 minute PMT cure schedule(which many are 15-20 minutes even)..You are leaving 10 minutes for that part to double its PMT and then cure for the remaining 10 minutes. That would be a stretch of the imagination on a small aluminum bracket even. Anything with some size or denisity to it on a schedule like that would be undercured for sure. If you take something like a set of steel brake calipers and brackets and monitor it via IR gun you will see this. Metal will reach that flow out/half way point to PMT many times faster than it takes for it to reach full PMT..the last part of the heat absorbtion is far far slower. It may never even reach full PMT at all unless you set the oven temp higher than the cure schedule temp, which is another common thing that gets looked past by new coaters..that's going back to the rules of convection heating I mentioned earlier, an alloy will only absorb so much of a percentage of the radiant heat around it.

That being said, many get lucky without even knowing it and here's why. Every powder has a "modified" schedule. Most 400 degree cure schedule powders for example will fully curry at 375 PMT or even lower as long as the part is cured for longer. a 400 degree PMT on 10 min powder might fully cure at 375 for 13-15 minutes for example. So depending on the heat absorbtion characteristics of the particular part you are curing, you may have made it to the lower cure point and be ok as long as it was left in long enough, just depends on the part in question. I use modified schedules intentionally all the time for various reasons which I can go into detail on if need be.

The "right equipment" is an inexpensive IR gun. I'm explaining all this for a reason. Under cured powder is the single biggest error by other coaters(besides shoddy prep work) than ends up with their work in my shop to be stripped and done again. Learning this stuff is the foundation to being a good coater. I've always had an issue with Eastwood's instructions they put with their products of 15-20 minutes after flow out for this reason, its just not correct and is damn lazy on their part.

Some people it may be ok for, depending on what the parts are used for. My customers beat the **** out of their stuff and I know it. Fully curing the parts by paying close attention to these rules on everything I work on,for maximum strength is important, and is why I've never had a part come back for warranty due to premature failure.

cam

iTrader: (9)

You get what you pay for and tough beats purty every single day in my book. But when tough and purty combine? You know you got the good stuff