Well I spent the last week-end powder coating and painting various parts. I have discovered a few tricks to powder coating. Pre-heat the parts that you want to powder coat. Then as you spray the powder on to the part it starts to melt and adhere to the part much quicker.
Since I am using the Harbor Freight inexpensive gun there are a few tricks with the application as well. Clean the gun after several applications. It appears that powder starts to build up in the tube as you are spraying parts. Then when you tilt the gun down to change the angle, trapped powder falls out of the tube on to your part and leaves an uneven surface. By using compressed air to blow out the gun every few applications the powder does build up in the gun.
The hardest parts to spray are the parts that have many sides or angles to them. As you spray these parts the powder then builds up on the parts unevenly and can leave what looks like orange peel on your surface.
When spraying powder it is really hard to tell if your part is evenly covered. After the part is cured and removed from the oven it now becomes really apparent of the areas that you have missed.
I have found that if you lightly sand the parts with 320 grit sand paper and wipe down the part with acetone you can now re-coat the part and get very good results. But you must re-coat the entire part. If you only do one section the rest of the part will have a nasty look of over spray.
The same goes for orange peel. Powder coating is very sensitive to powder thickness. If you apply too much in one area and not enough in another will cause the part to orange peel like and the thickness changes will be very noticeable. The best solution is to sand, wipe down and re-spray the entire part.
I also have noticed that the powder from Harbor Freight is not as good as Powder by the Pound. The Harbor Freight powder orange peels much easier than the other powder.
Here are some images of the finished parts.
Here is a shot of the swing arm chain adjustment caps, axle plates and fairing brackets. The gold powder coat is from Powder by the pound and goes on really nicely.
Here is a shot of the instrument cluster bracket, clutch master cylinder and a few brackets.
The master cylinder was a pain to shoot because of the size and many angles.
Here are the exhaust header sections.
These were not powder coated. They were painted with POR15 High Temp paint and cured in the oven at 400 degrees F.
Same goes for the exhaust pipe ends. POR15
Next week, more work on polishing the swing arm and rear sets.
Thanks
Joe
