...be polished to a high shine like paint?

I know you can get gloss powder coat - but its never that shiney/perfect.

Can it be flatted and polished just like paint?

Not tried it, but I suspect it wouldn't work the same as paint - most powder coat is nylon based isn't it?

The good stuff is epoxy apparently

The closest I've seen was my friend chassis on the exo bec he built.

He sent it to somewhere in Bristol, I can find out where on Saturday when I see him. It looks like direct gloss paint, it really is very good, nothing like powder coat.

It wasn't cheap though, something in the region of £700 for blasting and coating of the chassis.

I also had some bits done elsewhere with gloss black, apparently the same powder as bmw use on wheels, and you can see your face in it when it's polished. So I guess, shop around and you'll find something that'll make you happy.

HTH
Stott

Is this for the ally bits on your bike David? I remember seeing on another of your threads that you wanted to powder coat the ally parts as you felt that anodising would not have a glossy finish...

I have done a lot of anodising with various suppliers and it is possible to get a glossy finish but (as for the powder coat) your are dependent on the supplier. There are two reasons that most anodisers put out a matt finish. Firstly the ally itself. A lot of casting and free machining allys are not suitable for anodising but I'm guessing that you are talking about the billet bits for your bike?? These are probably made from something like HE30 (6082) or 7075 ally both of which anodise well. Ask the supplier of the part what the ally is and then check that alloy's suitability for anodising.

The second gloss killer is the pre treatment. The kind of anodiser that does large quantities of cheap tat like double glazing extrusion will tend to use an aggressive caustic solution. On its own, this will tend to 'burn' the skin of the ally and the longer the part is left in the pre clean the more matt it becomes. Another undesireable effect from this type of preclean is that the part is actually eaten away. I've seen bearing housings that became oversize in this way (500 odd components scrapped - you only do that once).

Again the solution is to talk to the anodiser and ask his advice. If he does not want to help you then walk away and find one that does.

The last thing that affects the final finish is the surface finish of the part before you give it to the anodiser. If the part has a good machined finish beforehand this will get you a better result than a cast or poorly machined finish. You can polish but this will demand more precleaning with the risks mentioned above. Again, discuss this with your anodiser.

A well machined component, in a suitable alloy anodised by a someone who knows what they are doing and cares about the result, can turn out out with a glossy finish, a deep colour (dark colours are best, particularly black) and will have the additional benefit of showing the machining (essential for the 'billet' look). The other advantage is that anodising will not chip or flake off. The only danger over time is UV fade.

When I was in the UK there was an outfit called Peterborough Plating. They did some stuff for me and they also used to do bits for cameras IIRC that looked excellent. Shop around and you will find a good anodiser.

I hope this helps. If you were not talking about your ally bits then this is probably not that helpful but it may help someone else.

Cheers,

Mike

Brilliant, thanks for the advice Mike Will have a work with Peterborough Plating too - they seem to have a good rep and are only 10miles up the road from me.

I have some sample bits coming back from a local powder coaters today - will see what they turn out like too

I have one of those home powder kits and you can get a reasonably glossy finish with it. I have clear high gloss and high crome, but the crome effect is merely okay

Search for my review of it on here. electrostatic magic its called

If you want a gloss finish a second coat using clearcoat should do it , bottom of page.

Well the powder coating is shite - shiney(ish), but orange peel. No where near good enough for what I want. So looks like I'll be getting that blasted off

Ideally I would have everything black nickel plated but its proving even more difficult finding someone to do that as well.

I am getting a bit disheartened by how difficult it is to get a decent black finsish, deep shine finish on these parts. I dont really want to go down the paint and polish route as they are very fiddly parts and I dont have the patience!

The powder coating guy I use does really good work - he does Z Cars' stuff, if that's a reasonable enough reference for quality.

I got my wing stays done by him in gloss black and they were like glass - very smooth and very shiney.