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This page shows my equipment and experiences with powder coating.
Pictured is the powder
coating facility I'm now using. I built a booth and covered it with laminate.I
started out using a vacuum sweeper to suck up the dust.The sweeper didn't work very well so I bought a dust collector
at an auction and with an air hose it makes clean up easier.The dust collector has a filter and a shaker unit built in so
the powder falls into a pan below.The dust collector is Y'd at the bottom and also collects from the hood on top.
You can start powder coating with a $100 gun and an old household oven.I wanted to do larger items so I went on the internet
and found a used commercial oven and gun.This is my first experience with powder coating and I'm learning by trial and
error.
I drilled and tapped different size
holes in a plate.This was very effective in both sand blasting and coating bolts.
After experimenting with
wrenches and other odds and ends we're going to move to engine parts.Parts are sand blasted and treated with picklex,a
coating that etches and seals the metal from rusting.
I washed the oil pump in the parts
cleaner,sand blasted and cleaned with paint thinner.I loosen up the 4 bolts slightly so they wouldn't get sealed in.The
inside of the lid wasn't cleaned good enough and while baking the part,oil seeped out of the bolt holes.Not good.
The starter was stripped,the case was coated and sent away to be rebuilt.
The generator and misc. brackets
PC and ready to install.These parts will be put back in inventory until needed.
A big problem is matching PC colors
to automotive colors.I had to mix different color powders to come up with the Ford orange-red motor color.Just like with paint(enamal,lacquer)there
are different types of powders.
It's time to try the block.The
block was sent to the machine shop,hot tanked and all the machine work was performed.When it came back I cleaned it with lacquer
thiner and coated it with picklex until I was ready to coat it.
The machine areas were mask
off.I pre heated the block @ 400 degrees for 30 minutes,let it cool to 160,coated and baked it @ 400 for 30 minutes.I like
to pre heat the metal to remove any oil residue and coat the metal warm.Baking time was longer to compensate for the large
amount of metal.
I used a cherry picker to spray
and move it in and out of the oven.The coating is magnetized to the part like dust on a TV screen.If you bump or rub the part
the coating comes off.The block looks great!!
The carb bodies sand blasted,before
and after.Do not use glass bead on aluminum.
The carb bodies were clear coated
and changed the color to gray.Doesn't this look terrible?I'm going to strip it and coat it a silver aluminum color.Brake
fluid,carb cleaner and lacquer did not affect the coating and sand blasting just dulled the surface.It came off with paint
remover.
Carb bodies recoated and look much better.
The top bodies were coated
with Eastwood's gold-bronze formula for Holly carbs.I hope they run as good as they look.
After sand blasting I brushed
on high temp lab metal and sanded to fill in the pits.I think this product could have been sprayed on with better results.
Coated with high temp satan black,15-20%
gloss.I'm hoping the gloss will diminish a little more from the heat when the engine is ran.
To get the manifold to look like
this I sand blasted it first and than started sanding with 80-120-220-360 dry.Than wet sanded with 400 to 1500 before buffing
with white compound.It was than cleared with powder coating with about 20 hours of time spent.
I sanded with 80-320 grit to get
the scratches out,than sand blasted and painted the birds.Now I will wet sand to 1500 grit and finish with the buffer.I had
PC them with clear but unlike the manifold they didn't look good,so off came the clear coat and I just polished them.
A complete engine powder coated.The
advantages are a plastic like finish,harder than paint that will clean up easier and should not stain like paint.Each part
has to be cleaned and coated individually making a better bond to the metal than putting it together and cleaning and painting
as a unit
The disadvantages are it takes MUCH more time than painting as a unit.It's hard to match automotive
paint colors.The coating has to bake 350-400 degrees so pumps,carbs and any parts with rubber or plastic has to be disassembled,coated
and rebuilt.
I had the
plater strip the old chrome off the air cleaner and I powder coated it with a silver gray powder.This is an orginal
2X4 cleaner with the dimple on the front side.After dipping the air cleaner it still had the copper finish on it and
must of filled in the (front ) located on the top.You can see the front inprint on the under side.This is the finishing touch
to the engine.
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