Cheap and easy powder coating

[David Morrow]

Normally, I don't apply colour to my projects but every now and then, I think a little colour would be nice. I do a bit of anodizing which provides a very nice finish. Lately I've been thinking about powder coating. One of the things that has kept me away from powder coating was the small size of my projects and the big messy setup to powder coat. I was doing a bit of Googling the other day and found a couple of interesting links. The first is a powder paint air brush ( I'm not sure how it differs from the air brushes that are used for paint.) and it uses very little air to move the powder. From what I can see, you just heat the object to be coated and then spray.

http://www.luremaking.com/catalogue/catalogue-index/catalogue-items/tools/powder_paint_air_brush.htm


Here's another link, where they just heat and then dip the object in the powder and then bake. ( Glitter optional ) I see that they sell a clear PC which would be interesting to try to see how something like polished brass would retain its bright finish.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Powder-Coating-Jig-Heads


The powder is actually quite cheap and is easy to find. The first link above sells in small hobby sized containers; 50 grams cost $7 or $36 / pound. I'd go with the small containers.

 

[Tin Falcon]

Dave looks like a cool kit and would make nice finished on modes I would think.
Tin

 

[shred]

Interesting, they use the heat of the part to melt & stick the paint powder instead of the high voltage gun the larger systems use to stick the powder on for subsequent baking. Worth a try, I'd say. I've heard you can do that with regular powder-coat as well, but not tried it. I bet it makes even more of a mess though-- with HV at least most of the powder gets attracted to the part.

 

[David Morrow]

Interesting, they use the heat of the part to melt & stick the paint powder instead of the high voltage gun the larger systems use to stick the powder on for subsequent baking. Worth a try, I'd say. I've heard you can do that with regular powder-coat as well, but not tried it. I bet it makes even more of a mess though-- with HV at least most of the powder gets attracted to the part.

That was my initial thought. Then when I read about dipping the part in the powder, the visions of all that mess went away. I'm going to try something small.

In the mean time, here's a little powder coat test project I tried the other day. I CNC's some small area's in a piece of aluminum and then covered it with black powder. I then took a razor blade and squeegeed the excess powder off the top. My little dollar store toaster oven (workshop use only) would only get up to about 325 degrees and I baked it for 20 minutes or so. It came out just fine.

 

[walnotr]

I once saw a demonstration of powder coating using what I believe is called a fluidizing bed. Basically a tall canister to hold the powder and an air source applied to the bottom of the canister. The air lifted and "fluidized" the powder so a preheated part could be lowered into the powder. The heat from the part melted to powder coat material forming the finish on the part. It worked pretty well but I think there was a problem controlling the thickness of the coating.

Steve C.

 

[deere_x475guy]

I have heated parts up a couple of times now before putting the powder on. One time because the part had thin edges and another time when the part had a 90 degree corner. The powder didn't want to coat the thin edge evenly and didn't want to get in evenly on the 90 degree corner. I believe the process is called hot flocking.

 

[Diversion900]

Many years ago in my sheet metal class we used a timber box with a vacuum cleaner attached to the bottom which airated the powder mix via a series of holes in a false bottom.

We used to heat our small sheet metal projects in a kitchen style oven for a while, then dip them into the box, then hang them back in the oven for a while.

we didn't seem to have any trouble with the thin corners at all. I can't remember any temperatures, or times though, it was about 30 years ago.

Cheers Neil

 

[SAM in LA]

Last week I preheated, 450F, a small tool handle in a discarded toaster oven and dipped it into a can of powder coat. It came out looking pretty good. The can is pint sized so I am limited on the size of part I can do.

SAM