Powdercoating anyone?

[Don B.]

I don't remember if the primer I got was from them or from powder buy the pound. I could look and see. But i do remember that whichever one had 2 choices and I got the epoxy one. I'd done a fair amount of parts "directly to metal" without primer but I've primered everything else I've done since. Everything I have primered will either take some heat cycles like the rotor "hats" and the outsides of the drums and/or might have occasional fluid on them like the backing plates which might have some brake fluid dribble onto them while bleeding or gas, as in the gas tank for my Kohler generator. I did the calipers before I had any primer so they are direct to metal. I thought about pulling my new wheel cylinders apart and doing those but I did leave those bare.

 

[showcrop]

I am 77 years old, and over the last twenty years I have primed nearly everything that I have painted. In earlier years I didn't understand that finish coats are made to take a beating but they are not so good as primers for adhesion. There is some science involved.

 

[Don B.]

Painting I always use a primer. Powdercoating I've come to understand that it's not always necessary to powder prime.
The primer on the frame and the rear end housing is listed as such for the top coat that I have used there but that primer can also be the top coat. Both are 2 part industrial epoxy. Both Sherwin Williams products. The primer is macropoxy646 and the paint is their "high solids polyurethane". Once I got the frame home and on the lift I saw a few spots I completely missed while that frame was on sawhorses in my son's yard. I went over and over and over some areas and had a little bit left in the gun and looked everything over for missed spots and didn't see any then. So I blew off what I had left in the gun in areas that I thought would be most likely to wear thru instead of the spots I missed. Like the underside of the far back cross member being the biggest spot, plus the spots in each corner where the frame actually sat on the horses.
For those spots I touched up with Eastwood brand "rust encapsulator" paint. Only blew off about 1 rattle can worth of that, in missed spots and it didn't lift or crack or anything. Seems to have "taken" well. The spots i missed with the black top coat, at least they didn't get missed by the guy who blasted and primed the frame for me.

 

[CorneliusFun]

I've recently gotten into it at home partly because of how crazy they charge to do it for you and how cheap it really is to do. Doing a lot of the small parts on my truck resto.
Parts like frame support gussets, hood hinges door hinges, battery tray, calipers and more. Anyone else in here do their own?

I just got into powder coating myself for the same reason, those shop prices add up quick when you have a bunch of little parts to do. Still learning as I go, but it's pretty satisfying being able to do it all at home.

 

[Don B.]

Haven't done any in a couple of weeks now, but the last couple of batches I've had problems with that I didn't have in the beginning... Seems backazzwards to me that I didn't have those kind of things happen off the bat but have as ive gotten further into it.. some of which I was able to figure out pretty quick what happened and why
(Too hot or left in too long, couple of different batches) Kinda finding/ stretching limits I guess.
My hand me down oven has faded knobs so having to guess how high it crank the knob...
I didn't think the element on top worked... Found out it only does on "broil" which is way too hot.
I have another oven that doesn't have the faded knobs but I have to get things shuffled around to be able to start using that one. (It's a double oven too). Problem with that one is it's taller but narrower. I usually do pretty decent adjusting the heat on my 1st one checking with my infrared temp reader and tweaking the dial. But for example when I did a pair of rotors one on each shelf the bottom one ran consistently 40-50* hotter than the top one. That's why I was wondering about the top one working or not. I just wasn't cranking it up enough to make that work but I discovered I really don't want it to...