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Old 01-01-2019, 10:57 AM   #1
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Is it good to powder paint vehicles?

Hi guys,

I'm planning to paint my 4 buses. Recently, I came to hear people are now more into powder painting. is it a good option to powder paint the vehicles?
Does anyone over here has any experience?
Or do you have better suggestions?

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Old 01-06-2019, 03:53 PM   #2
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Hi guys,

I'm planning to paint my 4 buses. Recently, I came to hear people are now more into powder painting. is it a good option to powder paint the vehicles?
Does anyone over here has any experience?
Or do you have better suggestions?
It would be a great option since powder is 10x's more durable than paint. Problem you have with a bus is powder coating requires a sand blasted base and once powder is sprayed on it goes into an oven where it heats up to 400° for 10 minutes. See any problems yet? I know of outfits that have 20' ovens that a bus might fit into, but not a long bus.
So bottom line is it is not a feasible solution. On the other hand I am powder coating everything I can that would get painted. All the olive drab parts here are powder coated.
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Old 01-06-2019, 05:13 PM   #3
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there are techniques available now to powder coat on-site rather than having to take the item to the oven - bridge railing is an example of powder coating on site - they use a tiger torch to bring the posts and railings up to the proper temperature - I've never used a torch when powder coating and always wondered if the job came out as well as an oven job, but government requirements are tough and they accept the method
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Old 01-06-2019, 05:22 PM   #4
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there are techniques available now to powder coat on-site rather than having to take the item to the oven - bridge railing is an example of powder coating on site - they use a tiger torch to bring the posts and railings up to the proper temperature - I've never used a torch when powder coating and always wondered if the job came out as well as an oven job, but government requirements are tough and they accept the method
This really was a fad that came and went though there are a very few places that still do it. It can't reach and maintain for 10 minutes the cure process of most powders and it is a "field fix" not expected to look show quality. Would not surprise me to see $20K quotes if you could find someone to do it. I do powder coating for a living, owned my own place for 10 years now. My friend got a good deal at an auction for one of those systems, it's been 5 years, it still doesn't work.
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Old 01-06-2019, 06:01 PM   #5
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Originally Posted by Deborah01 View Post
Hi guys,

I'm planning to paint my 4 buses. Recently, I came to hear people are now more into powder painting. is it a good option to powder paint the vehicles?
Does anyone over here has any experience?
Or do you have better suggestions?
To powdercoat a whole bus you'd spend thousands of hours carefully disassembling it then you'd need an oven big enough to drag a powdered bus carcass into.
I worked at a powdercoating place with such an oven, but they're rare.
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Old 01-06-2019, 06:08 PM   #6
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This really was a fad that came and went though there are a very few places that still do it. It can't reach and maintain for 10 minutes the cure process of most powders and it is a "field fix" not expected to look show quality. Would not surprise me to see $20K quotes if you could find someone to do it. I do powder coating for a living, owned my own place for 10 years now. My friend got a good deal at an auction for one of those systems, it's been 5 years, it still doesn't work.
I wondered about that - it's been many years since I worked for a powder coating company
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Old 01-06-2019, 06:13 PM   #7
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In my experience powder coasting is no better than paint. I am a diesel tech in the rust belt and see dump truck bodies and trailers that were powder coated only to look like rusted out garbage in a year.
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Old 01-06-2019, 06:19 PM   #8
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inclined to say no

Because .... I will use my bus as an example... The frame has been powder coated, and where the front coil springs sit on the frame, water, salt has gotten under the powder coating... now I have to scrape off the powder coating and do something about the rust on the spring towers.... I think this frame would have been better off to have just been painted.

If you ever have to weld on a part, stripping off paint is usually easier than stripping off powder coat.

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Old 01-06-2019, 06:30 PM   #9
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Powder coating is an art that involves several steps of preparation for a quality result. There is a huge difference between commercial/production coating and "custom" coating. The commercial production outfits don't take all the necessary steps to insure a long lasting result because as a manufacturer you only have to stand behind your 1 year warranty and they never deal with the end user. I hate when I see production results in the real world fail and then have to listen to people say how much powder coating sucks. That's like saying my Yugo broke down, therefore all cars are crap. If done correctly there is no downside to using powder over paint.
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