Powdercoating at home...Anyone try this?

Reviews seem to be pretty positive.

The comment that interests me most is the infrared heater. Having to buy a separate oven and being limited in the size of the items I can coat has always put me off.
 
Guys use this for smaller BMX part restoration. It works but it isn't like going to a professional that is buying high end powder which can cost more for a small can than you are paying for that whole machine.

The outcome of the job is in the quality of the statically charged gun and the skill of the operator. the professional guns are thousands of dollars.

In the end I had my powder guy do the work for $50 here and there. I appreciated all the expense and professional workmanship he put into the old BMX parts.
 
Guys use this for smaller BMX part restoration. It works but it isn't like going to a professional that is buying high end powder which can cost more for a small can than you are paying for that whole machine.

The outcome of the job is in the quality of the statically charged gun and the skill of the operator. the professional guns are thousands of dollars.

In the end I had my powder guy do the work for $50 here and there. I appreciated all the expense and professional workmanship he put into the old BMX parts.

I'm looking just to do coin doors...

Have you tried this unit?

I guess my biggest concern in stripping the coin doors...I assume they need to be completely bare metal before powdercoating...That alone is too much of a headache for me to do at home I think
 
there is a liquid spray that causes powder to lift. it pulls "cheaply done" powder like a champ. still requires some elbow grease on higher quality powder jobs. can't remember the name of it but it's something you can buy over the counter. google search of bmx genre should find it for you.

and you are right about the bare metal. it's gotta be spotless. i had half a dozen frames coated and he'd get them to a spotless shiny silver. sometimes he took hours on just one frame. i felt bad that he'd charge less than 100 bucks for a frame. but he liked BMX and it was a break from his production work....

if you can find a friendly shop, those coin doors will be an inexpensive redo if you get the person liking you and the passion of your hobby.
 
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A better comparison for that Harbor Freight powder coating system would be with spray painting your coin doors.

Consider Cost, looks, and durability.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
I use a HF gun for all my powder coating.
I used it for almost all of the powder coating in my Sega Star Trek Worklog.

It does the job - the hardest thing to locate is a big oven. I use a junked old Household oven that I aquired one from some freinds ... CL might be a good place to find one.

Once you have the oven; it's a matter of getting 220VAC to the oven.

I don't think you can do a coindoor in a toaster oven. Too small.

Don't use your food oven - toxic powder coat smells up the house worse than laser cutting. And you wouldn't want to eat food cooked in it.

For stripping; I almost always use a sandblasting hood which I also picked up from HF.
In a pinch; stubbon Powdercoat which wouldn't come of was stripped chemically with something which eats plastic at Lowes. Then after I had most of the powder gone; I sandblasted the rest off.
The metal does need to be clean of grease; I use MEK to remove finger prints/oil. You do want to make sure there isn't any rust or rust pitting. Sand it flat or it'll show thru anything but textured powder coat.
I usually sandblast the bare metal to give it a texture for the powder to stick thru. Unless your doing mirror chromes or candy; you don't need it "mirror perfect".
 
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I'm thinking I will take the plunge and try this out, but I have some pretty large pieces to do (APB seat, Warlords cocktail legs).

Does anyone have any info/experience using infrared heaters to cure powder coat? Google searches aren't turning up anything useful, just companies that build giant industrial infrared curing ovens...
 
Looks like Eastwood stocks some nice solutions for IR curing. Small systems are about $350 and cure a 1' x 1' area. When you get up to a 3' x 4' area you're talking more like $1400.

I'm actually sort of tempted to go for something like this setup here:

http://www.eastwood.com/ir-cure-system-with-dual-voltage-gun.html

Pretty damn expensive, but would probably rather go this route than get an old oven that won't fit everything I'd want to use the setup for (or build a giant oven that would have to likely be abandoned at some point down the road).
 
Went ahead and picked up the system I linked to along with some additional powder (wrinkle and satin blacks). Getting anxious to get my Warlords restore on the road and would like to redo my DK parts in powder that were previously done with Rustoleum.

Besides, who knows, it could open a new sideline for me. ;)
 
Looks like a fun tool to play with. Will you need to basically clear a garage/bay size area to use that? I assume it will heat up the area around it a bit. I've always figured if I ever tried DIY powdercoating, it would only be if I had the space for an old 220 oven.
 
I've been using the Eastwood one for about 8 years now for car stuff. Have an old oven that I use and it works but yeah kinda limited if what you need is larger than the oven. But can say the Eastwood cheaper one works fine for the money. Hebrew Freight stuff is kinda iffy.
 
I'm in an apartment, but I'm either going to rent a garage at the facility and fuck it all up or mess with it at work. I could just fuck with it at work and use the old paint booth, we aren't allowed to paint back there anymore anyways due to lease restrictions (but unlike before I will just be painting small items, curing them and hauling them off, not priming and painting a room sized piece of industrial equipment and leaving it to air dry).

Looks like a fun tool to play with. Will you need to basically clear a garage/bay size area to use that? I assume it will heat up the area around it a bit. I've always figured if I ever tried DIY powdercoating, it would only be if I had the space for an old 220 oven.
 
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