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Long Overdue Obligatory Post Part 2: Powder Coating

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While waiting for the block to come back from the machinist, I started powder coating some parts. Unfortunately, ended up breaking the gun when the cup started to fall and I tried to catch it, basically snapped off a straw that goes from the gun inside the cup and stirs up the powder to be picked up by the gun.

As it was now time for actual powder coating work, I learned quickly it's not quite as easy as I thought it might be. The crevices on certain components and the curves of pipes made the Faraday effect a real issue and it impacted my results. In retrospect, I should've spend a bit more money and gotten a Caswell powder coat gun for 2 reasons. 1) I broke the Eastwood gun trying to keep the powder cup from falling off and the Caswell uses metal tubing so that's not an issue, and 2) the Caswell varies from 5kv to 50kv, so you can get the better results from it and get around the Faraday effect. But, onto the pretty stuff:
Pre-coated valve cover
After baking





These turned out fairly well. It was a Columbia Chrome with a clear coat for the chrome looking parts, and I did the rear cover in a translucent blue. I actually wasn't wild about the way the color turned out, it's not as deep of a blue as I'd like. I'll redo them later. The plenum could've used with more sanding and some hi-temp metal epoxy to fill in the casting marks. Again, something to do next time around. The piping for the front mount turned out to be more difficult, the curves would prevent the coating inside the bends from turning out great, but it worked well enough. I couldn't fit some of the larger pipes and the Faraday Effect was a big enough problem I ended up just spray painting half of the pipes and sold my Dual Voltage Gun. Later I'll get a Caswell and try again.

You can see here how the reflective surface just isn't really there.
Some finished pipes:



In truth, for the cost, it's hard to beat. The chrome powder looks as good as or better than polished, and has much less upkeep, which I like. I got Eastwood to send me a new gun, and sold it along with what was left of the powder to make back a good chunk of my expense on it, total cost after selling it came out to about 70 bucks. Now, back to the rest of the rebuild.

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