Powder coating questions:

[TwoJ's]

I am beginning to get in to fabricating and machining parts for my car as well as some other random shit. In the near future I'll be producing some parts to sell, and I'd like to be able to PC them and whatever I want for my personal use.

I've done some reading, and it seems that I can buy a kit like this to fulfill my needs. The actual device seems very simple, and from what I read, the important part is to have the pieces prepped very well. My questions to r3vers are:

Have any of you done this?
What kit did you use? Or did you make your own gun?
How were the results? Have any pictures?
Any warnings or tips for me?

I'm likely going to buy a kit like this and the other necessary things I need sometime in the summer. I don't have a compressor, so this will be a good excuse for me to buy one. I've just been borrowing my friend's for a long time. I'll also need something to bake the parts in. I've read that a toaster oven will work fine, but it will limit the size of the parts that I can do. Does anyone have any ideas of what I could use that is larger (and is not the oven in my kitchen)?

And lastly, I've been looking at some different powders and such, and I see one that is "Gloss Clear". I wasn't aware that there was such a thing as a clear PC. Does this mean that I could polish all of the visible aluminum pieces of my engine (valve cover, intake manifold, timing covers, t-stat housing etc.) and use clear PC to keep them from corroding? How does PC stand up to high heat?

Sorry for the long post, and I appreciate any help.

Jordan

[Farbin Kaiber]

Do you have room in the shop area to place a garage sale or second hand electric oven? A good friend had one for that use.

[TwoJ's]

I guess if I really needed to, I could make room for that. I'm unsure though if a standard electric oven would be worth it because I probably still wouldn't be able to fit things like wheels or sway bars if I were to try to make them. I may have to stick to the smaller parts ; for the time being I guess.

Has anyone done this?

[ditchdigger]

I have the eastwood kit. Used it for valve covers and such, plus various equipment for mills that we manufacture at work. Getting the parts clean is critical. For me it was solvent tank -> blow off with compressed air -> soak with brake cleaner then into the 400 deg oven to cook off the rest of the oils and solvents.

I like to spray the powder onto the hot pieces so I can see it flow out then toss it back into the oven for the rest of the bake.

My eastwood kit is one of the first they sold, its old but works fine. I have used the harbor freight kit and it is just as functional as mine. An old kitchen oven is what I used as well.

It has been 5 years since I had it out. I think I might need to get another junk oven and start using it again.

[ITB4ag]

My high school metal shop got one of the harbor freight kits and it worked really well. The powder coat was relatively cheap there for simple colors like black and white. We used a garage sale oven and built a rack system for the inside, it could powder coat up to 14" wheels and stuff like valve covers and intake manifolds easially. For cleaning we sandblasted all the parts and just sprayed the dust off with a hose, it worked fine and I never had a finish problem.

You can get all kinds of powder coat, colors, clear, tinted clear, and stuff that mimics a hammered finish.

An so you know you're probably going to powder coat just about anything and everything when you get it. Dumbest thing we ever did was powder coat a root beer can so we could smash it with a hammer to test its durability (powder coat was fine as in no cracks).

If you are going to do something like valve covers you need to find a way to get all the oil out of em, the best way we found was baking it. But the oven would smoke horribly and it probably wasn't too good for the environment, let alone us.

[AndrewBird]

Sand blasting before hand is definitely the way to go. Not only does it get the part super clean, it also leaves a good finish for the paint to stick to.

You could either use a regular kitchen oven, or, with a little work, build your own oven using heating elements from kitchen ovens.

Caswell's forum has a TON of info on powder coating and even has a section on oven building.

http://forum.caswellplating.com/

And yes, you can polish a part, then powder coat it clear to protect it.