I saw on E-bay a powder coating system for $70.00. Has anyone ever used this gun? I know you get what you pay for. I was just wondering how well it works. If at all. Its almost worth the money to see if it does works. thanks Joe

I couldn't tell you how well the gun you spoke of works, I purchased a complete kit from eastwood for powder coating and have only used it once. The problem is baking the parts. Unless you have a old electric stove (cant use gas stove or you may see a big fireball) That you plan to never cook in again then your part of the way there. I practiced on a small door hinge I had laying around and a toaster oven. (don't laugh) Part must be COMPLETLY cleaned or powder coating will not stick and when baking part can not touch anything or you will have a bare spot. In my opinion unless you invest some money into powdercoating it is alot of work. Powdercoating looks realy good but is a pain in the ***. I f I could even find the kit I purchase for somewhere around $250 I would sell it for $70 just to see it go.
Stephen

The key to proper powdercoat adhesion is using the right media during blasting. Microscopic ridges and points are rounded off with silica sand leading to poor adhesion.

Different metals require different media.

For all that hassle I would find a place to do it for you.I'm having my rear axle housing done right now and it's only costing me $65.00 and that include's sandblasting it in a few places where the rear end shop left, a little rust on the housing.

If you have something powder coated will the finish crack under stress? I was thinking about the radiator support and misc. parts like the hood hinges. How about hood hinge springs, can you powder coat them?
I called a guy that does powder coating locally and I cant clean the parts and paint it for what he was willing to do the coating for. I painted the fire wall black with DP-90. It was $125.00 for a quart. Granit I didnt use much of the DP-90. The guy I talked to said $100.00 to sand blast and coat the radiator support and bolth inner fender wells.
I figured there was more to the powder coating than just a $70.00 gun off ebay. Thanks Joe

I 2nd the motion that this is something to farm out. I paid $150 to have my entire subframe and both lower control arms sandblasted and powder coated. That includes the sandblasting of a small box of misc parts.

For that kind of money, I could not possibly be worth it for me to try it at home.

Powder coating, from what I know, involves polarizing the paint and setting the target at the opposite polarity. The paint is charged positively and the target - like Salmons's subframe - is grounded, and the "opposites attract" theory is put into use. That's gotta be tough to do at home.

Q

It is not hard to get the powder to elecrically stick to the part as the gun has all ground wires atached to it. You plug the gun it to a wall socket, atach ground wire to part, touch part with spray nozel of gun to give it the charge and start spraying the powder. You dont even have to aim directly at part as you can watch powder statically cling right to part. After powder is sprayed on you have to be very carefull not to touch it on anything even while baking it(thats the hard part unless you have an industrial sized oven. Any theraded hole where bolts go mus be pluged with special heat resistant rubber plugs or you will never thread it again. I belive the man at Eastwood told me it is almost impossable to retap the threads.

You can powder coat almost any metal that can withstand 450degreesof heatforI belive 45 to an hour. Sheet metal will warp and aliminum will melt. I did see a finished carb that Eastwood had at there stand that look realy cool. There are alot more colors out there now and you can even get the color chaging thing where it looks like different colors at different angles. As I said it is alot of work and if I knew how cheap it was to have someone else do it as you all say I would of never bought the kit. Just my personal experiance with powder coating, Its a pain and I can't belive someone wouldn't charge much for doint the service as it requires work and time.

Stephen

I use to powder coat years ago, and now I'm in management for the same company. Powder coating is not that bad to deal with, it is just like any other paint. The biggest key is in the surface prep. Your average powder coating only requires your metal temp to be at 380 degrees for 10-12minutes to cure out. However there are powders out there now that can be baked out at a lot lower temps and you can get it to paint just about anything, even wood. In my slightly biased opinion you are almost better sending it out to be painted. A good gun that will fluidize the powder well will run you around $5,000 and you will need a large gas fired oven if you plan on doing your sub frame or any other larger part.