To me this project is about doing as much as I can myself during the build process, learning as much about how to do it all, and being able to say at the end "I did all that!".
So in that regard painting seemed the obvious choice. Powder coating requires specialist equipment and large curing ovens; well beyond the scope of the average DIY car builder.
Well maybe not......
Over the many years that I have been attending car shows, I've often walked past a small stand promoting a home powder coating system. I've stood and watched the demonstrations as the guys on the stand powder coat small squares of metal and then cure them using a hot air gun or an Infra Red heat lamp. And I've always walked away thinking "what a load of...."
These stands were run by a company called electrostaticMAGIC (which is quite ironic as the company that AK use to powder coat their chassis and parts is called Electrostatic Magic Ltd......) and I actually need to offer these guys a huge apology.
In this internet powered age, I managed to find several very positive reviews of their product. They have a blog on their website and on that, one of their customers had built their own curing oven using an Ikea filing cabinet and two Lidl hot air guns!
While scanning YouTube looking for reviews of the electrostaticMagic system I found a video by Eastwood covering their home powder coat system, which included a full demonstration of their dual voltage system. This uses a lower voltage to charge the workpiece, together with a diffuser on the end of the gun, to provide better coverage and adhesion of the powder to intricate parts. What was more interesting though was that they used a small table top oven to cure the parts which looked just like a normal small oven freely available on Amazon and eBay.
So maybe home powder coating could be a realistic option after all, at least for smaller parts.
It didn't take me long to decide to give powder coating a go! I decided to go with the Eastwood system over the electrostaticMAGIC version because of the dual voltage option.
The Eastwood system is distributed in the UK by Frost Restoration, who sell all sorts of interesting tools, equipment and products for the auto restoration enthusiast. Unfortunately having made the decision to go with the Eastwood option, Frost did not have any in stock and were not expecting any to be imported until early 2019!! So I was just going to have to wait, which wasn't really a problem as, at that time, I was not ready to start painting / coating donor parts in any case.
Besides the wait gave me time to scour eBay, Gumtree and Marketplace for a suitable small oven. This also took a fair amount of time to find one that was of the right size and at the right price, but eventually I picked up a 27 litre VonShef oven for the grand sum of £25!
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| Powder coating oven - I can also do my dinner in the garage now.... |
The guys at Frost Restoration had promised to give me a call as soon as they got the Eastwood system back in stock and, true to their word, I got a call from them towards the end of January and immediately ordered an Eastwood Hot Coat Dual-Voltage Powder Coating Gun Starter Kit. The starter kit comes with 250g of gloss black powder, some high temperature masking tape (although I bought some extra rolls in various widths off Amazon), a variety of silicon plugs for masking holes / threads, some stainless steel hanging wire and some spare bottles for storing powder. I also bought some Eastwood Pre-Prep (to remove grease prior to coating) from Frost and some tack-cloths from Amazon to ensure a nice clean surface prior to coating.
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| Ready to go powder coating!! |
Unfortunately Frost don't sell the full range of Eastwood powders and only have a very limited range of basic colours. However electrostaticMAGIC have a wide range of colours including metallic, candies, translucent and clear coats and even a chrome effect powder. I will probably have a go with some of the metallic colours at some point in the future but for now just settled for 500g of Satin Black (to match my AK chassis).
So now I need to finish getting all the donor parts cleaned, stripped and prepped for coating. Will let you know how it all goes!!
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