How to Powder-Coat Metal Art Items

I did this at TechShop Menlo park. http://www.techshop.com

Powder coating is a great long lasting way to color any metal pieces. I thank VW as the first company to use this method for their production and sharing it so that it can be widely used by many industries as well as just a common artist and tinkerer such as myself. The process is super forgiving, quick, fun and extremely durable. It uses very fine Polyester powder and an electro-static process to adhere it to the metal.

This is the inside to the sand blasting box. We put some metal pieces into it and blasted them with aluminum oxide. You can also use walnut shells or glass beads. Stripping the metal as much as possible is crucial in the process of getting the best powdering coating results.

Using TSP solution for steal items and Simple Green solution for aluminum brush and wash pieces thoroughly to insure all of the invisible oils are washed away. Wear nitrile gloves to protect you delicate hand skin.

Instead of towel drying the metal after rinsing with chemicals and then water, pre-bake to get all the water dried. Paper product drying will leave little paper particles on the metal which become dramatized when powder coated and become big blobbules. Pre baking only takes about 5 to 10 minutes at 375F.

Set up includes: 
* Install your tip and nozzle on the powder gun
* Connect the gun to the powder container and the powder container to the main box
* Ground with clamp to clean metal
* Connect main box with Pressurizes air and set PSI to 4 to 5
* Plug main box into electrical socket.
*Turn the main box ON and set KV's to 60 
*Pull the trigger on the gun and wait until it's appearing like a person exhaling smoke.

Keeping the tip of the gun about an inch to two inches away from the piece- cover thoroughly with powder and enjoy the magic.

At 375F for at least 20 minutes. Get your pieces out and enjoy the outcome. 

:)!