Powder coating help.

[Señor_Godric]

Hey guys, I'm purchasing some kick ass rock sliders and maybe a lo pro winch bumper, however it won't come powder coated. Wondering if it will be less cost effective if I do it myself than getting it done. As well, will it be difficult to do and what is the best equipment to use. Thank you guys in advance

 

[WindyCity4Runner]

Hey guys, I'm purchasing some kick ass rock sliders and maybe a lo pro winch bumper, however it won't come powder coated. Wondering if it will be less cost effective if I do it myself than getting it done. As well, will it be difficult to do and what is the best equipment to use. Thank you guys in advance

I just started powder-coating a couple weeks ago on my british car project. Your limiting factor will be baking the powder. I have a 16" oven and use it for things like brackets, but rock sliders are a whole different beast. You're going to have to invest in a serious oven to do that.

This might be one job you want to farm out.

For what it's worth I am sand-blasting in my cabinet, pre-heating the part in the oven, using the Harbor Freight powder coat gun with Prismatic Powder. Don't waste your time with the HF powder. The matte black is especially ugly.

 

[Señor_Godric]

I just started powder-coating a couple weeks ago on my british car project. Your limiting factor will be baking the powder. I have a 16" oven and use it for things like brackets, but rock sliders are a whole different beast. You're going to have to invest in a serious oven to do that.

This might be one job you want to farm out.

For what it's worth I am sand-blasting in my cabinet, pre-heating the part in the oven, using the Harbor Freight powder coat gun with Prismatic Powder. Don't waste your time with the HF powder. The matte black is especially ugly.

Thank you so much for that.. Mane this sucks, that means I have to spend more money to get it done because I don't have a giant oven to fit those parts in lol.

 

[Vinsil]

That is one reason I did not go with C4 fab. By the time you pay to have it coated your into them more than other companies that do powdercoating. Not a slam on them, I love the look of their products and the fab work looks great!


I also understand why they don't PC then ship too. Liability on damage is high if you don't spend a ton on packaging.

 

[wfo9]

for the bumper... If you can find a quality shop local, get it done right...

For the rock sliders.. it never pays to coat them. They will get destroyed anyway. Just paint them and do touch ups.... bed liner works well.

It's also quite adequate to paint the bumper if you want to save some money.

I got my front bumper on my 5th gen powder coated because it is more of light duty wheeler... but for all my other stuff I just paint because it gets the sh.. beat out of it.

 

[Señor_Godric]

for the bumper... If you can find a quality shop local, get it done right...

For the rock sliders.. it never pays to coat them. They will get destroyed anyway. Just paint them and do touch ups.... bed liner works well.

It's also quite adequate to paint the bumper if you want to save some money.

I got my front bumper on my 5th gen powder coated because it is more of light duty wheeler... but for all my other stuff I just paint because it gets the sh.. beat out of it.

Truthfully thank you for that!! What type of paint did you use??? Did you use a gun or just rattle can?

 

[wfo9]

Truthfully thank you for that!! What type of paint did you use??? Did you use a gun or just rattle can?

Rattle can is fine. The spray on bedliner works pretty well and seems to hold up. It has a fine flat finish and is very forgiving and easy to touch up. The only hard part is getting the metal clean before spraying. Use lots of light coats...

 

[Señor_Godric]

Rattle can is fine. The spray on bedliner works pretty well and seems to hold up. It has a fine flat finish and is very forgiving and easy to touch up. The only hard part is getting the metal clean before spraying. Use lots of light coats...

Thanks brotha I might just pick some up and get it done on a weekend :flamethrwoer2::whoo:

 

[Cheers!]

Here is my experience with diy of my metaltech rock sliders...

I too thought I could save money by doing it myself. I thought that it would be quick and easy. Especially at the time I had a new born and I hadn't wrenched in a while on anything.

I should have listened to myself that over the many many years of being a grease monkey that paint is hard to do well. The metaltech sliders still had the milscale on the tubing as well as well as any oil left to keep the raw steal from rusting. I went through countless 1 gallon acetone bottles from home depot to try to get the mill scale off. I then resorted to soapy hot water, then tried vinegar and anything I could Google search. This took me 4 days to prep the sliders while working on a bunch of cardboard laid out on the floor of my garage.

I then bought 3 cans of primer and ended up buying another 4 cans of vht matte epoxy paint. Primer I think was 5.99 a can at pepboys, the vht paint was 7.99 I think... I also had to drive around to 2 pepboys to find enough rattle can. The acetone was 3.99 at home depot, I went through 4 cans of it.

After painting primer and 3 coats of paint I mounted the sliders carefully. The first step I put my foot on the sliders to see, a chunk of paint came off. I was pissed. 2 weekends wasted, back was sore and I spent around $80 to $90 on paint and it all needed to be redone. I thought I prepped the sliders perfectly and made sure the metal was clean... But I guess not.

I was quoted 130 bux to have them powder coated locally here in San Jose. I ultimately unbolted the sliders and dropped them off to be sandblasted and powder coating after living with rusty sliders for a year.

Morale of the story. Get them powder coated. The powder coating is way stronger than rattle can and the pros have a way of sandblasting, dipping, prepping better than you can do at home.

I now just touch up with por15 and a bit of rattle can for overcoat as needed. So far the powder coating has held up very very well.

 

[Señor_Godric]

Here is my experience with diy of my metaltech rock sliders...

I too thought I could save money by doing it myself. I thought that it would be quick and easy. Especially at the time I had a new born and I hadn't wrenched in a while on anything.

I should have listened to myself that over the many many years of being a grease monkey that paint is hard to do well. The metaltech sliders still had the milscale on the tubing as well as well as any oil left to keep the raw steal from rusting. I went through countless 1 gallon acetone bottles from home depot to try to get the mill scale off. I then resorted to soapy hot water, then tried vinegar and anything I could Google search. This took me 4 days to prep the sliders while working on a bunch of cardboard laid out on the floor of my garage.

I then bought 3 cans of primer and ended up buying another 4 cans of vht matte epoxy paint. Primer I think was 5.99 a can at pepboys, the vht paint was 7.99 I think... I also had to drive around to 2 pepboys to find enough rattle can. The acetone was 3.99 at home depot, I went through 4 cans of it.

After painting primer and 3 coats of paint I mounted the sliders carefully. The first step I put my foot on the sliders to see, a chunk of paint came off. I was pissed. 2 weekends wasted, back was sore and I spent around $80 to $90 on paint and it all needed to be redone. I thought I prepped the sliders perfectly and made sure the metal was clean... But I guess not.

I was quoted 130 bux to have them powder coated locally here in San Jose. I ultimately unbolted the sliders and dropped them off to be sandblasted and powder coating after living with rusty sliders for a year.

Morale of the story. Get them powder coated. The powder coating is way stronger than rattle can and the pros have a way of sandblasting, dipping, prepping better than you can do at home.

I now just touch up with por15 and a bit of rattle can for overcoat as needed. So far the powder coating has held up very very well.

Dang that hurt me deep bro, I'm sorry you went through that.. I might take your advice.. I just diont to dish out Any more money

 

[JSparky]

I just started powder-coating a couple weeks ago on my british car project.

Whatchya working on?

 

[living4surf]

I painted my c4 sliders just wiped them down with alcohol then a couple coats of primer and a couple coats of high temp flat back (have found it holds up better on parts that take abuse).
Have no problems with them holding up so far though they haven't been through much yet other than my kids sliding across them as they get out.
But they did take way more paint than I expected 4-5 cans can't remember exactly. I'm still planing on powder coating them later but waiting to get my bumpers and some other parts so I can do them all at once.

 

[vailTRD]

Call Corey up at Insain Fabrication. He can get you a good deal. (I assume you are in CO)

 

[LaFJ86]

My FJ sliders put up with 4 years of daily driving and off road with 4-5 coats of rustoleum self etch primer and 4-5 coats of the satin black professional enamel. Traded it in and it only needed a little touch up. I would never powdercoat sliders personally.

 

[WindyCity4Runner]

Whatchya working on?

1969 MGB GT. It's getting supercharged and air-conditioned.

 

[1engineer]

Here is my experience with diy of my metaltech rock sliders...

I too thought I could save money by doing it myself. I thought that it would be quick and easy. Especially at the time I had a new born and I hadn't wrenched in a while on anything.

I should have listened to myself that over the many many years of being a grease monkey that paint is hard to do well. The metaltech sliders still had the milscale on the tubing as well as well as any oil left to keep the raw steal from rusting. I went through countless 1 gallon acetone bottles from home depot to try to get the mill scale off. I then resorted to soapy hot water, then tried vinegar and anything I could Google search. This took me 4 days to prep the sliders while working on a bunch of cardboard laid out on the floor of my garage.

I then bought 3 cans of primer and ended up buying another 4 cans of vht matte epoxy paint. Primer I think was 5.99 a can at pepboys, the vht paint was 7.99 I think... I also had to drive around to 2 pepboys to find enough rattle can. The acetone was 3.99 at home depot, I went through 4 cans of it.

After painting primer and 3 coats of paint I mounted the sliders carefully. The first step I put my foot on the sliders to see, a chunk of paint came off. I was pissed. 2 weekends wasted, back was sore and I spent around $80 to $90 on paint and it all needed to be redone. I thought I prepped the sliders perfectly and made sure the metal was clean... But I guess not.

I was quoted 130 bux to have them powder coated locally here in San Jose. I ultimately unbolted the sliders and dropped them off to be sandblasted and powder coating after living with rusty sliders for a year.

Morale of the story. Get them powder coated. The powder coating is way stronger than rattle can and the pros have a way of sandblasting, dipping, prepping better than you can do at home.

I now just touch up with por15 and a bit of rattle can for overcoat as needed. So far the powder coating has held up very very well.

If you would have asked you could have saved about 3 days and 23 hours. Next time, just grind the sliders down to bare metal. Takes about 20 minutes. Clean it with Metal Prep. Hit them with just a bit of sand paper. Several coats of fast dry primer. Scuff it up and roll or spray on the bed liner. All those steps won't take you more than half a day and most of that time is waiting for the primer to dry.

If you want it to be pretty, like painting your front bumper, then after grinding hit it with 36 grit, 80 grit and then 120 grit with a DA. then prime and sand after every coat. Finally rattle can to your desired finish.

 

[Runn4est]

I'm in agreement on not getting powder coating. I painted my shrockworks step sliders after prepping and self etching with spray bedliner. It's got a little rust in the crevices underneath, but I hit it with fluid film. Every time it gets banged up, I've actually just put Plasti dip on them as touch up. It's held up surprisingly well and really doesn't look bad. On my set coming for my 4th gen, I actually have a bunch of extra epoxy frame paint so I'm going to hit it with that after prep and primer.

 

[wfo9]

If you would have asked you could have saved about 3 days and 23 hours. Next time, just grind the sliders down to bare metal. Takes about 20 minutes. Clean it with Metal Prep. Hit them with just a bit of sand paper. Several coats of fast dry primer. Scuff it up and roll or spray on the bed liner. All those steps won't take you more than half a day and most of that time is waiting for the primer to dry.

If you want it to be pretty, like painting your front bumper, then after grinding hit it with 36 grit, 80 grit and then 120 grit with a DA. then prime and sand after every coat. Finally rattle can to your desired finish.

^^ this. Most people don't know how to work with metal. It's not like painting a room... The key is mechanical prep. Flap disks on an angle grinder work great. Wire disks... also works well. Might have to hand sand some areas that are hard to reach. Bead blasting is best, but nobody has access to that at home. You just don't want smooth or oily metal.

For the spray on bed-liner... I find primer (even the "self etching") to be unnecessary. Just lots of light coats at first with plenty of dry time and it holds up for years with 0 issues and looks decent.

 

[Señor_Godric]

No I'm in Cali

 

[coltm4]

Rustoleum professional spray on bed liner. Available at wally world and resists chipping better than any spray paints i've used so far. Far cheaper than powder coat and easier to fix when your sliders get used. I used zinc cold galvanize as a primer and so far it works.