Powder coating....at home

[SeatIbiza]

Hi all,

Probably a bit of a random one, but I'm trying to get as much as I possibly can into my home garage in terms of "car" things. I'm happy to get stuck in with pretty much anything (RS4 B5 and MK1 TT cambelts coming soon!).

The MK1 TT has a seized caliper so I'm probably going to tear it down and rebuild it but it was painted, I think, with red nail varnish using some mud to apply it and that has all but gone and looks crappy.

Which made me think about powder coating.

Anyone got any experience? The sort of kit I'm looking at (following a video on youtube!) is under £200. Then I'd need an old oven to bake the items at 200c. The only other thing is that the powder seems to be quite pricey and you seem to need a fair amount about 1kg to do an alloy for example which costs wise appears to be around £15-20 per KG.
Cheers,

James

 

[Tom_ed1987]

I'd suggest you'd be better off getting yourself a little mini paint booth type setup so you can (relatively) safely use 2k paint etc at home.

You can easily and cheaply change colours your finishing in then, maybe even progress into small bits of bodywork etc.
Powder coating media is costly & it's a bit of a dead end, the main benefit really being speed of application & minimising labour costs in a more industrial setting, & you likely will still need to send large items like subframes/wheels etc to a proper powder coaters anyway.
The last subframe I had blasted & coated was, aside from very large, done with 2 stages with a zinc powder undercoat. To replicate at home would be costly.

Also IME powdercoated finishes aren't quite as durable as the most durable paint finishes. You also can't touch them up.