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DIY Powder coating
wormscoffer - 13/9/15 at 11:02 AM

Hello all

I would like to get a home powder coating kit and don't know whether to go for the Eastwood dual voltage or Electrostaticmagic one.

Does anyone have any experience of either or both and can offer me any helpful observations?

TIA

Andrew

trextr7monkey - 13/9/15 at 01:40 PM

We have the powdercoat magic set up purchased at Newark show one year. We built a little booth to recycle the powder and have an old oven to bake small stuff
We've had great results on spacers Nd rocker covers but I don't think it would be good enough for wheels or stuff that gets weather thrown at it constantly. Its great for long bits of aluminium tube which comes up really well.
So happy with it for the money paid but it does have some limitations.

Irony - 13/9/15 at 01:58 PM

I have a electrostatic magic and it works flawlessly. No issue with the machine. However I haven't managed to get the durability of professional finishes. That's the powder though not themachine.

cloudy - 13/9/15 at 03:33 PM

Electrostatic magic is good - durability of the finish is closely linked to both the surface prep, and the correct temp & time for cure. You need to make sure the SURFACE temp reaches the proper temp (180c ish) for the prescribed time. Otherwise the finish can easily look OK but will be brittle and flake off...

A typical cure might look like this:


You'll need a fanned oven at least - don't even bother with heat gun's and IR heating is hard to get right...


James

wormscoffer - 13/9/15 at 03:36 PM

I'm considering putting together this : http://www.homediystuff.com/building-a-diy-oven-from-filing-cabinet/

General reviews for the Easy Coat (Electrostatic Magic) all seem to be good so I think it's a safe bet. I'm just wondering about the Eastwood gun as it seems to be the starting gun for many professional coaters.

Thanks for the replies so far but hoping someone can report on the Eastwood.

lsdweb - 14/9/15 at 10:27 AM

Hi wormscoffer

I've got a kit for sale if you're interested - I bought it off another LCB user a couple of months ago and I've not even taken it out of the box! It's unlikely I'll use it so may as well sell it.

Details here

Regards

Wyn

Irony - 14/9/15 at 03:15 PM

quote:
Originally posted by cloudy
Electrostatic magic is good - durability of the finish is closely linked to both the surface prep, and the correct temp & time for cure. You need to make sure the SURFACE temp reaches the proper temp (180c ish) for the prescribed time. Otherwise the finish can easily look OK but will be brittle and flake off...

A typical cure might look like this:


You'll need a fanned oven at least - don't even bother with heat gun's and IR heating is hard to get right...


James


I have always used a fan oven. I have to say that my surface prep is pretty good. I always lightly sand the surface and then wash with thinners or acetone and allowed to dry. I have found better results by preheating the part in the oven before spraying.


HOWEVER I have found that 180c is way tooooo high for my powder coat. I think it says 20 or 30 minutes at 180c on the powdercoat packet. In my oven at a recorded 180c for 20 minutes the powdercoat has blistered and blemished. Smoking sometimes. I found 120c better. But then I suffered from brittleness.

As I am typing this I am thinking back to when I used the above oven as a kitchen cooker (we have a new one and the old one went as a powder coat oven) my missus always complained the oven burnt everything. Perhaps its thermostat is broken.

The lesson is then is the temperature is pretty critical. I don't believe a genuinely good robust long lasting finish can be created with a heat gun.

trextr7monkey - 14/9/15 at 03:44 PM

We have never tried a heat gun, guys at the shows use radiant heaters we have baked half in the oven with the door slightly ajar and then swapped ends but I guess we need a bigger oven like the filing cabinet thing but you can't getaway with such Heath Robinson ideas in a school workshop

cloudy - 14/9/15 at 04:16 PM

Irony - Hysteresis on a fan oven can be quite high to boot, I ended up replacing the thermostat with a chinese PID controller. The temp probe was fluctuating by 10 odd degrees and the temp seemed to be 20+ degrees higher than set!

Sounds like yours was a fair bit hotter, I tend to cure at 190 - most common polyesters are up to 200c for 10-15mins