Wargasm

Wow nice work!

Brian

CARLiTO_

theres a powder coater from www.hotcoat.com for like 399.99 with a 10lb hopper....im thinking of getting that.....any suggestions/comments? im not gonna get it now tho.....ryte now i have to get this work area at my uncle's shop cleaned up so that i can have a little workbench and i'm gonna make a little booth for sandblasting and powdercoating....im getting an old oven pretty cheap and thats about all i'll be needing....by the way this is Mr. BiG G...not carlito.....im using his account lol....scalliwag i want this setup ready by the end of december so that i can start sandblasting/powdercoating.....i found www.hotcoat.com as a good resource for all this stuff but im gonna need ur info on this...

peace out,
Mr. BiG G

Scalliwag

Keep in mind Mr. Big that I am really green at this too. If you know for a fact that you are going to learn this and have a demand for it then I would go with a better unit than the Harbor Freight. I will probably at some point upgrade this as I get better and can at least grasp the difference between what flaws are do to my lack of skill and what is due to equipment quality.
But at $60 with what I have done so far I am happy with.
At some point I hope to be good enough to where I know what to do to make it better.
I think I am the absolute epitomy of the term "jack of all trades, master of none". I can usually squeek by on the skin of my teeth at a lot of things. But on any given trade or skill I would not be a very good point man.
But in most cases the people that I know that are at pro level at their particular skill, they usually do not have as broad of range of skill outside their specialty as me. (that is not neccesarily a bragging right believe me )

Some things I dive into pretty blindly depending on the setup cost and what is at stake if I fugg up. I read enough about powder coating to know that if I sprayed it and it did not look right it would only take a quick hit with a blow nozzle to clean it off and try again (before cooking) I also had most of the tools except for an oven and powder unit.
I tell you all of that to give you a little insight on how I approach things. If you have to seek advice on a particular trade or subject you are best suited by finding the best qualified person to lend you their advice.

So the best advice I could ever give you is to go to the best for advice. I'm more than happy to tell you what I know and never afraid to say when I don't have an answer.

Scalliwag

I am going to buy this info CD off of Ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=2439530743
I will let you guys know if it's worth it or not.

93BlackFD

i got my gun for < $200 at eastwoodco.com

it's pretty good quality, the only thing that sucks is switching powder

10lb hopper is wayy too much for home use, seriosuly don't buy a hopper

Scalliwag

I know the little powder jars that the Harbor Freight model uses holds plenty. So I agree that a 10 lb. hopper seems to be excessive. My oven would barely hold a 16" wheel and I filled it only once after I started spraying. So I got 4 wheels done and I would have probably not even had to had refilled that once if I did not mess up and have to blow it off a couple of times.
I think those are 8oz cups but you are not supposed to fill them all the way up or let them go below 1" from empty.

Switching powder does suck. I bought extra cups at Harbor Freight so I at least do not have to dump them.
Then I use my rubber tipped air nozzle and make the dust cloud from hell cleaning up the gun.

Can you post some pics of some stuff you coated 93?

Hades12

Scalliwag

Where did you get the powder? How much was it? How long do you have to "cook" the parts?

Thanks

Scalliwag

I got my first powder (gloss black) at Harbor Freight and the rest on Ebay. The best deals I have seen are Ebay but you need to make sure the seller has good feedback and not selling old or low quality ****.
The white I got was great. I have some other colors I have not tried yet that are supposed to be really nice looking.
The cure times and temps vary. My white was 375 for 15 minutes and the black was 400 for 20.

Scalliwag

Here are links to what I bought on Ebay so far

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ory=42927&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ory=42927&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ory=42927&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ory=42927&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ory=42927&rd=1

banzaitoyota

i get my powder at www.hotcoat.com

93BlackFD

hotcoat= eastwood

Mr BiG G

i'm not gonna be using this for a home use kinda thing....i have people willing to pay me for powdercoating this stuff....i'm gonna make a little booth in my shop and i guess u guys are right....10 lb hopper would be a lot....cuz the things im gonna be powder coating are gonna be small and the colours will be different...can i refill those cups?

Mr BiG G

and also if im done with one colour and i need to use a different colour and i need to change cups....will the remaining powder in the old cup stay in or will it puff out cuz of the air pressure as soon as i open it up?

93BlackFD

powder comes in it's own container, usually they screw onto the gun, cleaning powder is difficult, because when you mix it with water, it's like liquid paint...sorta, sticky/glue like

make sense?

Scalliwag

Can you post some pics of parts you coated?

LDawg

Scalliwag, you might want to check this out also. I stumbled upon it while browsing ebay. Link. Hope this helps.

Scalliwag

Thanks for the heads up on that. I did not see it with my Ebay searches for some weird reason. It looks very good and one thing I really like about it is they did not use a standard book binding! So you can flip a page and the damn thing stays flipped.
I am the type that sometimes likes to have my manuals in my garage and use them for reference on the fly while I am working.

I ordered the CD and they have a few interesting links to tech stuff from their Ebay auction.
This one in particular gives a lot of insight on prep and types of powders used for underhood and exterior applications. I know I wondered about the answer to that.
http://www.technicalhelp4u.com/powder/hints.htm

Scalliwag

I spent most of the day building my mandrel bender but I took time out to powder coat an alternator housing.
To me an alternator for some reason has only looked "right" when it is polished and not painted.
Even painted silver they look "ghetto" as hell to me.
I figured this would be a real good test for that "mirror chrome" powder. To my surprise it actually looks like a polish pewter or nickel finish.
The only thing I would do different is grind off the little casting ridges. Other than that it looks damn good and I am shocked. If I had expected it to look descent I would have ground those damn ridges... Murphy's law sucks!

I am really curious about the black chrome now.

Scalliwag

Oh in case you don't know there is a trick to putting a alternator back together. Just in case you try this you need to know this. The brushes have holes in them. There is a access hole through the cover you put a paper clip (or similar wire) through. You push the brushes into there holders and slip the clip through the brushes.
Put the armature and all back together a pull the clip.
If you don't do that you will break your brushes.
I will post pics of that when I put it back together tomorrow. This has pretty worn brushes to I am hoping I can get a set at the auto supply.

Scalliwag

I made a thread specific to the alternator issue for those interested https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...postid=2294106

Scalliwag

Cool. The people I won the CD abot powder coating from ave a forum on their web site

http://www.technicalhelp4u.com/forum/

Rx7carl

Housing looks good! I wanted to polish mine, but I dont wanna be a slave to keeping the finish nice. This looks like a great alternative.

Scalliwag

This is my next powder coat project. It is going under my rotary T-bucket project so it will be very exposed and needs to really look nice.

Mr BiG G

good stuff! keep us posted

Scalliwag

I was out at the local metal scrapyard yesterday picking up some metal for my mandrel bender project. It was yucky and cold but I am like a kid in a candy shop and I always have to dig through the general bullshit junk scrap just to see what is there.
In the past I have found more cool **** like turbos, a couple of GMC 8-71 blowers, NEW electric motors and pumps, and stuff you really cannot figure out why it was thrown out.
Well yesterday was a good day I am diggind and I see a small wad of oxy-acetylene hose protruding from a pile of bullshit. I figured at best it may have a couple of regulators, a mix handle and a rosebud or cutting torch hooked up.
But the gods of the scrapyard were truly smiling down upon me. I get to one end and there is a weird gun attached with two more hoses to it. I'm thinking "no fugg'n way!" Sure as **** it's a Wall Colmonoy F3 Spraywelder! At the other end was a bent up hopper and the air/powder panel with the regulator still intact!!!
I know what you are probably thinking. What the hell is a "Wall Colmonoy F3 Spraywelder" and why is Scalli so damn excited about this?
Scalli is excited because this is a spray torch for putting on flame spray coatings!!! So what is the big deal about that you ask? Ceramic is a flame spray coating!!! YEAH!!! And it cost me less than $5.00 because it was scrap!!! RAH!!!!
I already have an oxy-acetylene setup with the big tanks I just have to replace the hoses, fix the hopper (probably end up making one as this one looks hosed) clean it all up and get some ceramic powder.
This gun can be used to coat turbos, headers, side plates, intakes, etc.
I will drag it all out later and take some pics of it all before I start reconditioning it. Hell I will post a new thread in it's honor
Since we had earlier discussed the limitations of powder coating and touched on the subject of thermal spray I thought this was incredibly ironic that I end up with a setup like that. These are high even on Ebay for incomplete systems. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=26261