Ive seen powder coated things rust and be junk just as fast as spraycaned rust prevention , and ive seen powercoated things last forever , is there a degree of powder coating ? How do you know what your getting? Take the ATS Intake for example , It Says its powder coated when i bought it and you can damn near sratch it to bare metal with your finger nail .

 

good question DM. I always wondered that myself as I have powder coated stuff that is like iron and some stuff that chips if you look at it.

 

A follow on to that question is what paint to use to touch up... enamel or water-based?

 

Its just like anything else... its in the prep. Yes there are different grades of powder, but if the product isn't blasted before its coated then it lacks the "bite" to keep it on there. My loops are all blasted, and time will tell how good a job I did...LOL I wont do any candy colors unless it is understood that it WILL chip since it is a two part process (translucent red over silver). They look bad a$$ but are not very durable. So, if you are taking something to be powder coated it need to be blasted if you want it to hold up....

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If you can/will get some extra powder from you coater you can make up a touch up paint. I have seen it done, and I can get some more details on how he does it if you like..

Enamel would be the best. Scuff the area you are going to patch, and you may try flake off any color that may be loose and come off later.

 

AN IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE:

Do Not Powdercoat or try and talk your coating guy into coating a pressure cylinder, like a dive tank or air compressor tank that will hold a lot of pressure. The process "bakes" the item in an oven at around 325-350 degrees and it will change the properties of an aluminum dive cylinder to the point of exploding!

If you try to coat galvanized or aluminum here's some more info to consider.
If you polish out an aluminum cast part, and it looks killer, and want to clear powdercoat it, chances are almost 100% that it will "bubble" and look like crap. A billet aluminum part will NOT bubble and will no doubt look awesome, and I always clean my aluminum stuff with acetone and a blow nozzle siphon attachment and dont touch with bare hands. Then bag in zip lock bag and tell the guys that it's REALLY CLEAN and explain. It'll come out better if they know what they're doing.
Galvanized is usually chemically cleaned unless you don't care if the coating is blasted...so it ocassionally doesn't come out to real 'smooth' looking and consistant.
We dont have much galvanized stuff on our rigs but thought it might be of knowledge value to you out there.

A method of making the success and durability factor higher on candies is to ask if they do candies and if not try asking them to hot coat the part, which means they preheat the part for something like a half hour then swing it into the spray booth and coat it before it goes cold again, then hit the oven and bake it to about 75-80% of what they usually do with only one coating and then back to the spray booth for the top color beofre it goes cold, then back to the oven for about half again the original time to make sure the top coat is baked sufficiently.

Hope that helps.

db