Powder Coating - Application Equipment, Powders, and Learning Curve?

[Tuco]

Been thinking about getting into small parts DIY powder coating for future DIY projects, some hifi related and most outside hifi.  I already have some of the major equipment, including curing the parts.  For those who are powder coating chassis plates, transformer end bells, and other parts, what application equipment and powders are you using?  And, how difficult is it to become reasonably proficient at reliably producing an acceptably coated parts?  What makes it worth it for you to perform this process yourself?

[Paul Birkeland]

You can technically do this with a big toaster oven, a small compressor, and the Eastwood powder coating gun.  Some of our bigger chassis plates will only really fit in a full sized oven, which requires more than a wall outlet, and things start to take up a lot of space really quickly...

[Tuco]

You can technically do this with a big toaster oven, a small compressor, and the Eastwood powder coating gun.

Already have a big oven, compressor, and IR temp gun.  If I go buy that Eastwood gun, is it reasonable to expect that I’ll get good. reliable results?

[Paul Birkeland]

Where are you planning to do this?  The best results will come with a relatively clean environment and a pretty short distance between where you're shooting the parts and where you're baking them. 

(I've never used an IR temp gun for anything I've powder coated for whatever that's worth)

[Tuco]

Where are you planning to do this?  The best results will come with a relatively clean environment and a pretty short distance between where you're shooting the parts and where you're baking them.

In my pottery studio, where there is spray booth and a large electric pottery kiln to heat the parts in near the spray booth.  The booth is kept clean.

[Doc B.]

I take advantage of PB for powder coating on amp components, but I have done a fair amount of motorcycle parts and a few end bells and chassis. Peebs' comment about keeping the spray area close to the oven is right on. We used an old kitchen range oven for curing and we had a large cardboard box with the top and front cut out of it that sat right on top of the range as our spray booth. It was sized so that an oven rack would sit nicely on the top of the box. We would hang the parts off the energized rack and spray on the powder and then simply move the rack down from the box into the oven to cure. I found the infrared thermometer is useful to make sure everything is at working temp, but I was doing more massive parts like engine side covers. And I have the Eastwood gun, which works fine. Just like paint getting a good coating requires a little experimentation with air pressure but in general it's a lot less finicky than a paint sprayer.

Bear in mind there is a lot of powder cleanup involved. We had a shop vac nearby and an air hose that was long enough to go out the door so we could take stuff outside to clean it up with a blow gun.

[Tuco]

Excellent - thank you both!