I know quite a few of you fellow GRMers have your concocted your own setups to great success, and of course I want to copy it. Any help would be appreciated!
I know quite a few of you fellow GRMers have your concocted your own setups to great success, and of course I want to copy it. Any help would be appreciated!
I bought an Eastwood kit. I got the lower power unit and have done things as physically large as an LS1 oil pan and as heavy as a 15" wheel. It works fine. That being said, I wonder if I should have got the dual-power unit?
I get my powder from www.prismaticpowder.com mainly because they will send you up to 5 samples at once for free. The sample is a strip of aluminum (or al-you-mini-um if you're British) coated with the color. On the back of the sample is a label telling you exactly what was done to that sample, i.e. clear coat, etc.
What I want to do us build a simple spray booth where the parts is suspended from a turntable. That way I can spray the part and rotate the part, instead of rotating me. It'd have furnace filter sides and a fan creating an updraft.
I pretty much do the same as my esteemed colleague, Doctor Boost.
Eastwood Dual voltage gun, powder from Prismatic (because they are local) or Powder Buy the Pound. The only thing I don't like about Prismatic is that they don't give you any information on application. There is a section for datasheets on their site, but they are vague and I'm not always sure I'm looking at the right sheet. It would be a big help if they had even them simplest of directions; "10min@400F" is really all I would need.
Powder from Prismatic and PBTP comes in a heavy duty plastic bag. Powder from Columbia Coatings comes in a nice resealable container. I know a lot of guys here like Powder365, but they're on the other side of the states from me, so I've never bought from them. The Harbor Freight matte black is surprisingly awesome, but doesn't have any UV inhibitors, so it will fade in direct sunlight.
I like to "hot flock" my parts, which is essentially pre-baking them. My oven is pretty small and doesn't heat evenly, pre-baking the part lets it get to a nice uniform temperature, which should lead to a nice uniform finish. This also allows you to let off the power and shoot some powder in "dead" to help combat the farraday cage effect.
I shake the ever living E36 M3 out of the powder before I scoop it into the gun. Get it nice and aerated then let it settle for a minute or two. I was sifting it between the bag and gun for a while, but never found any large particles, so I just skip that step now.
When I'm done coating and it's time to clean the gun, I find that the shop-vac makes short work of the majority of it. The powder particles are extremely fine and will hang out in the air for a long time if you're in a place with little airflow. On a warm day when shooting metallics, expect to look like a stripper.
I also bought an eastwood kit and have had decent luck with it. I bought my powder through eastwood though (so no experience with any others).
In reply to Burrito:
What's your take on the dual voltage gun? Have you done large things with it?
Columbia Coatings, is that a resealable bag, or plastic "jar"? I like the idea of resealable, but so far I've been re-using pint containers from the local take-out place to store powder in.
How much are you actually going to powder-coat. All the guns work to a degree but the oven is the kicker, its hard to get a big enough oven if you are only doing this sporadically.
DrBoost wrote: In reply to Burrito: What's your take on the dual voltage gun? Have you done large things with it? Columbia Coatings, is that a resealable bag, or plastic "jar"? I like the idea of resealable, but so far I've been re-using pint containers from the local take-out place to store powder in.
I dig the gun. The biggest thing I've done with it was a 15" wheel, only because that's the largest thing I can fit into the oven. I bought it more to future proof my setup than anything else. Well, that and it was on sale for the same price as the single voltage gun.
The Columbia Coatings stuff comes in a nearly cube-like plastic "jar" with a nice wide lid. Durable enough to reuse if you get powder in a bag from somewhere else. I've yet to find empty containers that I like enough to keep my powders in, but am still looking. It seems like cheap and durable with a large lid are mutually exclusive. I tried the soup containers from my favorite Thai place, but they didn't seal particularly well and smelled like Kao Soi.
This is what I show my friends when they find out that I powder coat stuff. The gun has probably just about payed for itself in beer-favors by now.
wearymicrobe wrote: How much are you actually going to powder-coat. All the guns work to a degree but the oven is the kicker, its hard to get a big enough oven if you are only doing this sporadically.
I built an extension for my oven. I think I can do about 16X16X32 now.
wearymicrobe wrote: How much are you actually going to powder-coat. All the guns work to a degree but the oven is the kicker, its hard to get a big enough oven if you are only doing this sporadically.
I found the thread.
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/sometimes-its-not-the-size-of-the-box-its-how-you-use-it/96795/page1/
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