Powder Coating Guns?

I bought an earlier version of the Eastwood gun 15 or so years ago. Worked fine, coated a bunch of stuff. You do have to cure at 400F+ depending on powder so part has to be able to take the heat and you need an oven of sufficient size for what you are doing. As mentioned above, you have to consider dimensional change on tight tolerance parts but high-temp tape can be used to mask where needed. I started with a regular oven but eventually built a larger insulated cabinet with 2 oven elements, and PID temp controller.



Powder gets everywhere unless you have something to control and definitely don't bake in your kitchen oven.
 
I'm with Old Blue. The wheels on my 1930 CCPU were powder coated a rich burgundy colour the same as the body by the previous owner but they quickly faded to about the awful dull brown colour of red oxide primer. In a couple of hours, they are all going to the sandblaster to be cooked (to destroy the coating) then blasted and primed. Never will I use powder coating.
 
Waorani said:
I bought an earlier version of the Eastwood gun 15 or so years ago. Worked fine, coated a bunch of stuff. You do have to cure at 400F+ depending on powder so part has to be able to take the heat and you need an oven of sufficient size for what you are doing. As mentioned above, you have to consider dimensional change on tight tolerance parts but high-temp tape can be used to mask where needed. I started with a regular oven but eventually built a larger insulated cabinet with 2 oven elements, and PID temp controller.



Powder gets everywhere unless you have something to control and definitely don't bake in your kitchen oven.
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The oven costs about $1000.00, can be picked up by the manufacturer in Illinois to save shipping if you are close enough. What is the going rate to sandblast and powder coat today? See some old post from 2013 indicating about $80.00 per wheel..... Trying to determine the economic soundness to purchase this equipment, from these numbers two jobs will pay for the equipment.....
 
Like any coating, good prep is the key. There needs to be a good grippy surface to apply the powder to. Most of my stuff was smaller and blasted w/ aluminum oxide in blast cabinet. Everything I did 15-20 yrs ago still looks like the day it was coated. I have a cheap electric oven I use in the shop for various projects but no way would I pay $1k for bigger oven unless I was going to do it commercially. Easy enough to build an oven yourself.

Assume you mean Model A wheels? Not sure on those but I had five '58 Buick wheels done about a year ago - $100ea.

One thing to watch out for with DIY powder coating is "Faraday cage" effect where corners/nooks/crannies get a weird charge and actually repel powder. That might be an issue with all the spokes on a Model A wheel.
 

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We went thru that phase in life where we switched to powder-painting undercarriage pieces on vehicles we were restoring. We first used the Eastwood gun, and we used both their powder, and we used Tiger-Drylac's powders.

FWIW, when I have gone back and looked at the powder painted vehicles we restored back 15+ years ago, and compared it to pieces we painted with catalyzed PPG Concept (DCC9300, DCC9700, & DCC9000) around, -or just before that time, the sprayed liquid paints have held their sheen and color fastness better than the powder-painted pieces have. With rare exception, we have not powderpainted anything for a restoration in the last decade or so. My recommendations are that most powders are about ½-step above a Krylon rattle can paintjob.

So to answer your question, basically the Eastwood gun has a long metal rod that uses a pressurized cup to blow powder up into a diffuser where that powder is statically charged by the current flowing by the metal rod. If the humidity is great, it doesn't charge the powder enough to make it cling to the item you are applying the powder to. The reverse happens if the humidity is too low. This is all controlled better when in an assembly line oven where the powder can first be fluidized, and then the metal object can be preheated. All of this is really beyond the capability of most home users.

Below are a few of the items we made for us to do this years ago...

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Built this A-powered roadster in 1999. Local guy was opening a powder coating business and I was at the head of the line. Turns out that my car was used as a teaching tool by DuPont techs. Frame, suspension, wire wheels and parts were PC'd black or red. Took two weeks and I paid $460 for materials. I sold this car in May and the PC looked just as good as the day I assembled it 24 years ago. As several have said the key is proper prep.
 

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I had the wheels on my Tudor powder coated about 3 years ago. The cost was $125/wheel and they still look great. I'm not sure I could have gotten as nice a paint job as the powder coating is with the spokes, etc. I've never tried to do any parts myself even though I have access to the equipment.
 
Waorani said:
Assume you mean Model A wheels? Not sure on those but I had five '58 Buick wheels done about a year ago - $100ea.

One thing to watch out for with DIY powder coating is "Faraday cage" effect where corners/nooks/crannies get a weird charge and actually repel powder. That might be an issue with all the spokes on a Model A wheel.
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Yes, I was thinking to powder coat the rims on my coupe for the durability to be gained over paint.

What of this Faraday Cage effect, I see that the higher end guns produce a static charge of up to 80Kv. The cheap one from Eastwood is 15Kv, and the better one is 25 Kv. Is this charge variation being provided to overcome this problem? Usually if something cost more because it is said to do more or better is usually the case, but not always. In this case the professional model is about three time more.....
 
8EL said:
Yes, I was thinking to powder coat the rims on my coupe for the durability to be gained over paint.

What of this Faraday Cage effect, I see that the higher end guns produce a static charge of up to 80Kv. The cheap one from Eastwood is 15Kv, and the better one is 25 Kv. Is this charge variation being provided to overcome this problem? Usually if something cost more because it is said to do more or better is usually the case, but not always. In this case the professional model is about three time more.....
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Unfortunately, this is a myth. There is not a durability advantage with powder paint vs. sprayed paint.
 
8EL said:
Yes, I was thinking to powder coat the rims on my coupe for the durability to be gained over paint.

What of this Faraday Cage effect, I see that the higher end guns produce a static charge of up to 80Kv. The cheap one from Eastwood is 15Kv, and the better one is 25 Kv. Is this charge variation being provided to overcome this problem? Usually if something cost more because it is said to do more or better is usually the case, but not always. In this case the professional model is about three time more.....
Click to expand...


My understanding is the professional grade PC equipment has less of a problem with Faraday effect but I've personally never used any. The higher cost Eastwood system probably is better but true professional grade PC guns cost several times as much as Eastwood's top unit. I'll leave the debate over PC durability/etc or whether it's even appropriate for Model A stuff to others. But I personally wouldn't attempt to DIY PC spoked wheels.
 
PC was developed to answer EPA problems with VOC emissions. I don’t think it was touted as superior to paints. There was probably no sales job somewhere that threw superiority of such.
 
I had two aluminum gates PC about ten years ago. Today they look like primer. If you get a chip on PC wheels how will you touch them up.
 
Y-Blockhead said:
That has always been my question. How do you touch up chips in PC parts?
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I touch up chips on powder coat just like I would touch up a chip on paint - with matching color paint.:)


As for UV, paint can fade from exposure to full sun as well. Some powders like paint are more UV resistant than others.
 
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