Powder Coating at home.

I’ve been sick of painting parts with rattlecans for a long time. The surface is just too weak, tighten a bolt and the paint chips off. I started to watch some youtube videos about DIY powder coating, i had to try it myself!

2014-07-27 20.36.27

I found a cheap solution at nordicpulver.dk – a tribo gun that charges the powder in a teflon nozzle. No seperate charging station and high voltage gun is required. I grabbed a few bags of powder and placed an order. To bake the powder i bought a cheap Ikea oven, nothing fancy and it has a good internal size.

Check the gallery for the result of my first try. I didn’t do anything to the parts to make them look better, i just sandblasted, cleaned and coated them.

7 Replies to “Powder Coating at home.”

  1. Hi there,

    just saw your pictures of your powderes parts from the motocycle, and i have some few questions to that:
    1.) What else is needed to powder the parts except the gun, powder and an oven. i mean at least you have to get some electricity onto the part and i read somewhere, that for this purpose there is high voltage needed. what kind of electric device do you use to load the parts so that the powder stays on the part?
    2.) it seems to me, that the gun isn’t isolated against the electricity, so do you wear some gloves, that isolate you from the gun?

    Would be nice to hear some details from your construction. i already have an oven and i want to buy the gun now, but i don’t exactly know what is further needed for the electric load.

    Thanks and best regards,
    David

    1. Hi David.

      1.) You don’t need much else! This gun uses the tribo effect, where the powder gets a very high static charge by passing a teflon nozzle (the blue tip). It works great, it’s in use in many automatic powder setups. Making a product like this, so simple is a small revolution 🙂

      2.) The gun is connected via a cable to the item you will powdercoat, i.ex an iron rod from where you hang a thick metal wire as a hook for your item. From there the cable also goes to ground, i’ve attached it to the chassis of the oven, which is grounded via. the power outlet. So the powder gets a positive charge, and the reverse negative charge is transfered to the item (as far as i’ve understood). The powder sticks very well! You don’t need gloves, i’ve never been zapped, don’t think this is a problem with a tribo gun that is grounded.

      Other than this, you need an air compressor, one of those water removers for the compressed air and a pressure regulator. Often the water remover is combined with a pressure regulator. You need to adjust to 0,5-1 Bar pressure, you regulate the powder amount like that.
      Wear a dustmask while powdering, consider to build a small box with a filter in the back and a ventilator behind it if you would use it often. Saves time on the cleanup.
      If you need to mask some parts that don’t need paint, you can use polyester tape and silicone plugs. They can withstand the heat in the oven. Alternative, you can mask it with normal painters tape, and carefully removing it before putting the item in the oven. I’ve done both, i actually like the last version better. Polyester tape is annoying to work with, it’s stiff and doesn’t stick well.

      Since i bought this powder gun, i made some samples for work. My boss was impressed, so now we own a larger Wagner powder coating system. I would go so far and say that you can make equally good results with this gun. And it’s better for narrow places, where our Wagner corona gun system doesn’t work so well because of the faraday cage effect.

      Only negative thing i can say about this Nordic Pulver gun is that the nozzle needs regular cleaning. The powder gets clogged and the powder output is reduced. Just clean it after every use and you have no problem, it’s easy to dismantle and clean with a soft toothbrush and compressed air.

      Hope this helps, please ask if you have further questions 🙂

  2. Hi Carsten

    Thank you for uploading the pictures.

    Have you experienced any orange peel issues?

    It has been about a year, is the gun still going strong?

    Chris

    1. Hi Chris, it is still going strong. I sold everything to a friend in our moped club, everything works great and is easy to clean and use. We got a large professional powder coating machine at work, thats why i sold my personal stuff.

      You can get a bit of orange peel if you put heavy layers on it. In general i would say there is more orange peel in powdercoating, than spray wet paint. I.ex. on motorbike tanks it is more visible. For frame parts etc. powder coating is perfect.

  3. Hej Carsten,

    Er der nogen tommelfinger regel for hvor store ting man kan male med dette system?
    Eller er det bare størrelsen på ovnen som der sætter grænsen?
    Jeg overvejer at købe sådan en, til at lakere Monza stjernefælge og diverse andre småting. Er det realistisk?

    Mvh.
    Peter

    1. Hej. Det er kun ovnen der sætter begrænsningen. Ved støbte alu dele er det en god ide at forbage emnet efter det er renset. Ca 30 min ved 200 grader, ellers gemmer der sig gasser i den porøse overflade, som gasser ud gennem lakken under hærdning.
      Når den er kølet af igen kan pulver et sprøjtes på og så bages.

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