Powder coat help

[John Coloccia]

I'm right on the verge of having to drop a supplier for one of my products. They provide me with aluminum enclosures, drilled, powder coated and UV printed to my specs.

So anyhow, it's just proving too hard to get stuff turned around in a reasonable amount of time, and even the communication has recently gone to pot (Christmas rush? I don't know). Drilling is really not much of a problem. They CNC drill, but I can do just as well with guide pin style fixtures and I would pick up 2 or 3 cheap drill presses and dedicate them to this task. No problem. I'm certain I can find SOMEONE around here to handle batch UV printing work.

The question is powder coat. I'm considering just doing that in house as well. I figure that if I'm doing all this other work too, I may as well just do this as well. I already have a spray booth here. It's setup to just exhaust outside, but I'm thinking that I can just filter it and exhaust straight into the shop since it's pretty much inert. I'm wondering about oven. Is there some economical way that I can bake my items? They're small....about 4"X6"X1.5" aluminum boxes. I only work in batches of 50 or 100, typically, so if I could just bake maybe 5 at a time, I could just spend a few days in my spare time coating and baking, and I'd have the whole run done in a couple of days.

Then all I'd have to do is get the UV printing done, and that seems like it's much easier to get done reliably, and locally, than any other step.

What do ya'll think? Any powdercoat guys out there that can guide me along? Am I crazy? I spray lacquer pretty well, and I know this stuff is a whole lot easier than that, so I think it's doable if I can get the right equipment and process.

[Eric DeSilva]

I'm by no means a powder coating expert, but I've played around with the one at my local TechShop. They actually have a separate booth for the powdercoating, although I'm not sure why. Powder in air is somewhat dangerous from a flammability perspective. Anyway, you can get pretty darn good results even without a lot of practice. If you are doing the same things repeatedly, I would suspect you could get awful good results pretty fast. The set up doesn't seem particularly significant--the objects have to be clean, however, so we were told to sandblast, wash with TSP, then dry thoroughly. To date, I've only used the big oven--6'x6'x4' or so--but they also have a smaller oven for little projects. That one is about 2'x2'x2' and sits on a benchtop--seems like it might be more the right size. I'd volunteer to go find out what the brands/models they have are, but I'm actually probably not making it into the shop until after Xmas. Good luck with it.

[John Coloccia]

The more I look into it, the more it seems like it's really simple but will eventually take up more room in my shop than I really want to dedicate by the time I'm done with the oven, sand blaster, and whatever else I'm not yet thinking about. I may just have to suck up local powder coat costs for now. Of course, the easiest solution is to just keep my single source supplier, but the turnaround time is just soooo long sometimes. On the other hand, they're very nice and very helpful, and it's generally good work once it's done. I don't know...I'm torn. I really don't WANT to get into the powder coating biz too, right now.

I wonder if a lab oven would work? Is there anything particularly special about a powder coat oven?

[Tom M King]

Just go to a Habitat recycle store, and get a regular oven. I think you only need 400 degrees. A lot of hot rodders, bikers, and even golfers do powder coating in their garages with one of the Eastwood kits, and old kitchen ovens. Seems like there was a rule against posting a link to another forums, but I'm not sure if that was these forums, or one of the others for different things I do. Anyway, maybe this won't be a conflict for a woodworking forums: http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/1098779-my-first-powder-coated-head/page__hl__%20powder%20%20coat Some better avatars too.

[John Huds0n]

I personally have no experience with powder coating, but from some of the car forums I frequent, Eastwood products are very popular with the home DIYer

http://www.eastwood.com/paints/hotcoat-powder-coating.html

Also, there is a lot of info out there on the web regarding DIY ovens - here is just one example
http://www.powdercoatguide.com/2014/09/how-to-build-powder-coating-oven.html

[Jim Koepke]

I'm right on the verge of having to drop a supplier for one of my products. They provide me with aluminum enclosures, drilled, powder coated and UV printed to my specs.

So anyhow, it's just proving too hard to get stuff turned around in a reasonable amount of time, and even the communication has recently gone to pot (Christmas rush? I don't know).


There are a few questions that come to mind.

Do they do the fabrication from sheet to printing or do they only do one or two of the total steps? If there are multiple shops involved in the process, just one of them getting overwhelmed can add to the time line.

As for the printing I haven't been in that industry for about 40 years. Back then one of the newer inks was UV curing. Not sure if that is the same as what you are seeking.

I used to mostly do silk screen printing. If it could be held still, we could print on it.

jtk

[John Coloccia]

There are a few questions that come to mind.

Do they do the fabrication from sheet to printing or do they only do one or two of the total steps? If there are multiple shops involved in the process, just one of them getting overwhelmed can add to the time line.

As for the printing I haven't been in that industry for about 40 years. Back then one of the newer inks was UV curing. Not sure if that is the same as what you are seeking.

I used to mostly do silk screen printing. If it could be held still, we could print on it.

jtk

Silk screen is the traditional way of doing this sort of work, but UV printing is a million times better. It's basically an inkjet with UV curable ink. Once it's cured, which is more or less instantly, you can dip it in acetone and it won't come off. The added benefit is I get full color printing. No more multiple screens, huge setup fees, etc.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Nothing to add, but I'm curious what you're doing, John. Sounds like perhaps a Hammond box, and knowing your guitar stuff, I wonder if this is pedal stuff. That was my first real DIY stuff a decade ago. I thought you could get the Hammond stuff pre-powder coated in simple colors? That could get the first step done. I'd be real curious what you're doing, if you don't want to post it here, I'd love if you PM me, just out of curiosity.

[John Coloccia]

Nothing to add, but I'm curious what you're doing, John. Sounds like perhaps a Hammond box, and knowing your guitar stuff, I wonder if this is pedal stuff. That was my first real DIY stuff a decade ago. I thought you could get the Hammond stuff pre-powder coated in simple colors? That could get the first step done. I'd be real curious what you're doing, if you don't want to post it here, I'd love if you PM me, just out of curiosity.

I don't mind posting here, but I don't want it to seem like I'm trying to advertise. It is pedals, though, and it's even a Hammond box. I tried the Taiwanese and Chinese knockoffs. They're OK, but the quality is nowhere near Hammond's nice, crisp lines, and I just can't bring myself to using them to save a few bucks. Of course, I think Hammonds are made in Taiwan too these days. Anyway, maybe just search for my website. I'm JColoccia Guitars....though not doing any guitars at the moment thanks to the 9 month old twins :). I'm discontinuing some old stuff and introducing some new stuff, and having some teething issues. I'm really trying to get it worked out with my current supplier. Like I said, they're very easy to work with and are a single point of contact, so that's a big advantage when there are multiple things to get lined up.

Holes need to be drilled before powder coat or the powder coat will be damaged. Not every hole is covered up by a knob or nut of some kind. That, and Hammond's colors are boring and bland.

Now here's some magic for you. I ordered a batch of bare circuit boards on 2:00 in the afternoon on Thursday. It's supposed to be a 3 day build time. Friday I get a notice that they shipped. Boards will be in my shop on Monday. If I had Saturday Delivery, they'd be here today already. Think about how incredible that is. Albeit there's nothing on the boards, they're just bare circuit boards, but I can go from my brain to actual production circuit boards sitting in my shop in 48 hours. It's not even like I'm using some sort of expedited service. I think that's pretty amazing.

If someone came to me and needed something really simple done as a rush job, I could conceivably prototype it in the morning, create the schematic and circuit board design in the afternoon, place the order, and I could maybe hand him a final product a couple of days later. That's not the sort of work I do, but the point is I COULD, and that's amazing.

[Brian Elfert]

Just go to a Habitat recycle store, and get a regular oven. I think you only need 400 degrees. A lot of hot rodders, bikers, and even golfers do powder coating in their garages with one of the Eastwood kits, and old kitchen ovens. Seems like there was a rule against posting a link to another forums, but I'm not sure if that was these forums, or one of the others for different things I do. Anyway, maybe this won't be a conflict for a woodworking forums: http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/1098779-my-first-powder-coated-head/page__hl__%20powder%20%20coat Some better avatars too.

I have a feeling that using a household oven for this in a business would probably be against OSHA or or some other government regulation.

[Brian Elfert]

Why not just order in larger batches and warehouse them? When you get down to 1/3 remaining or something then place another order. Inventory costs money, but might be cheaper than taking it in house or finding another supplier.

[Bruce Volden]

I helped a good friend of mine start a powder coat business back in the mid 90's. Built a ~23' X 9' oven fired by propane so he could do larger projects. Powder comes in various formats depending on the application, poly, epoxy, hybrids.... Also in just about every color and texture imaginable (including vein). I personally never ran the gun but I know you have to "dial in" the proper mil. thickness depending on what the piece is to be used for. Might take some practice-but certainly do able for the beginner. I say go for it, it is TUFF stuff. I'm recalling most pieces were "baked" @ 350 F for 20-30 minutes (thin lightweight metals). 40 minutes plus for heavy iron (sprint car frames et al). I think it will be a quick learning curve. If the piece cures out correctly you can hit it with a hammer and it's NOT coming off (may mar the coating though)--but this would be a way of checking out the process as you learn.

Bruce