Page Thirty-Two - Powder Coating!

 

I haven’t showed you guys this yet, but I have been powder-coating everything that fits in my garage oven for about 25 years or so.  Yeah, unlike normal people, I have a yard-sale oven mounted on the wall in the garage, just above the air-compressor, next to the bead blast cabinet.  Normal garage accoutrements.

What? You don't have an oven in your garage?

Today we’re coating the headlight buckets because I have new hardware for them from Sunbeam Specialties and because I wanna.  I also have the rear leaf spring shackles and a steering box mount that just happen to be ready and need to be black too.  We’re applying Eastwood Company’s powder coat primer and Mirror Black color coat.

Step One, Cleanage:  Powder-coated parts must be clean, surgically clean if you can get it.  Any dirt, old paint, rust etc. will bubble the powder-coat or prevent the powder from sticking.  Glass bead blasting makes things VERY clean.  It calms the obsessive restorer’s nerves.  After blastage, wipe everything down with lacquer thinner, and we’re ready.

(Short Technical Blurblet:  The powder in powder-coating is exactly that, a dry powder.  You stick it to the metal with electricity.  Attach the powder-coat gun’s ground wire to the victim and charge it with negative electro-bugs.  The powder-coating gun’s barrel charges the powder dustlets with positive electro-bugs, the negative electro-bugs attract the positive electro-bugs and Bob’s Your Uncle, a perfectly even coat of powder.  That’s why you can only powder-coat stuff that conducts electricity.  Also, since you slap it in the oven at 425-degree heat for about 20 minutes, the victim must be able to take the heat too.  Plastic, rubber, and such truck are out, sorry to say.)

The Victims - headlight buckets all cleaned and ready

Where was I?

Step Two, Primer:  You don’t always need to apply primer, in fact this is the first time I have applied primer, but it helps, and I’ll prime things regularly now.  BTW, it’s a powder primer.  It’s applied just like any other powder.

Sometimes imperfections in the metal, like ground in grease from sixty years on an old Sunbeam Alpine imbeds stuff in the metal that bead-blasting and lacquer thinner just don’t touch.  I have had powder refuse to adhere to spots for no apparent reason in the past.  The primer helps prevent that, and it gives you a chance the fix problems between the primer coat and color coat.

Primed!  They needed a bit of sanding before the color coat

Priming also gives a smoother color coat and deeper coverage.

Step Three, Perfect Color Baby:  Powder-coat is like the most awesome paint ever!  The shine is perfect – Eastwood’s Mirror Black is THE shiniest.  No drips or runs, just the smoothiest, most evenest coverage.

And it’s damn nearly indestructible!  You’ll learn how indestructible if you ever try to sand the stuff off.  It shines through gas leaks, brake fluid, thinners.  It doesn’t chip; it’s really hard to scratch, it even takes blows from dropped wrenches and whatnot.  Consider it permanent paint.  (If you change your mind about the color, you can paint over it, or re-powder-coat it, but that can be problematic.)

BLACK!  It's hard to get a pic of just how awesome the shine is

BUT the powder insulates against electricity.  If you need ground a powder-coated dingus, you must grind down to clean metal.  If you don’t, the ground will be weak at best.

Assembled with new hardware from Sunbeam Specialties
I love restoring stuff!