Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

So... I'm doing some last minute shopping, and I'm in Sears. For whatever reason, I end up walking around the tool area... and look what I find:

Craftsman Powder Coat System

I would never have expected this. Does anyone know anything about this? Does it work? Is it any good? Did anyone else know about this?

OK, I admit, we don't need to powder coat anything - I just thought it was interesting.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

i have used one, we have one in the shop at RIT. The thing about powder coating is it isn't the powder or gun that is hard it is the cooking of your parts. I don't know about you but i don't have a spare oven for cooking parts and i am not going to put them in the one i cook with.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

If they are small enough parts like little plates or mounts you can buy a little convection oven maybe.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

It was in an issue of PopSci a few months ago. From what they say, (and it makes sense) for small parts you can just use a toaster over, which is what I think sparksandtabs said. You could do some cool stuff with that...

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

Last time I visited a harbor freight they had a small oven for cooking powder coated items, it had a decent size inside, looked about the size of a small refrigerator that one might have in a dorm room. Wasn't too expensive if I recall correctly either, about $350

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

I wonder why you can use a toaster oven but not a regular food prep oven.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

Just don't use a microwave :P

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

I work at Sears and recently saw this item when I started working this Holiday Break. Looked pretty cool, but it didn't appear that anyone had bought one yet. If I think about it, on Saturday I'll ask one of our tool pros about the powder coater.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

you can use a regular oven but until heat is applied the power is held on by an electrical charge, and during the process some excess is almost always going to fall off the part. Now imagine you made a cake in that same oven later that afternoon :rolleyes:

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

I don't suppose some Easy-Off and elbow grease would rectify that problem, would it?

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

what about a small room, and maybe a large Convection heater or forced air heater, if you insulate the room well enough would that work?

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

I was thinking a good solution for this would be to go to goodwill, or the salvation army and buy an old crappy stove that still works. That way you will get the heat you need but don't need to worry about the powder getting on something you are going to use to cook food.

I have a buddy who has an old dishwasher in his garage that he uses for cleaning car parts...this would be kinda like the same thing.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

The oven used for powder coating shouldn't be used for food because of the fumes and emissions as the powder cures.

I have a larger 6 slice toaster oven that I bought from Kmart for $40 for the powder coating system from Eastwood (auto restoration supplier). This is identical to the Sears one and you can use powders from either one. If I had the space I would get an old electric kitchen range. Getting a used kitchen range is cheaper than a powder coating oven. Whatever oven you use must be electric and not gas. You need 400 - 450 degrees for the powder to cure, the higher spike in tempature during the first several minutes of cooking to "flow" the powder out. The size of the oven dictates how big of parts you can do.

Generally the darker the powder the more fumes it releases as it cures. Once the parts cool off from the oven they are ready to be used. They look as if they are painted, it's not a very thick coating, but it's much more durable than paint. The powder is sprayed on from a special gun using an electrostatic charge to hold it to the part. Any powder overspray can be swept or vacuumed up. The trick is to not touch the part after you spray it. Thin metal wire works good for this. After being coated you can carry the part to the oven and hook it onto one of the racks so it can hang freely in the oven as it's baked.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

:eek: Not at all "kinda like the same". Using a spare oven to heat the powder coating isn't going to break any laws, but using a dishwasher to clean car parts covered with oils and greases will. That is, unless he has a "closed loop" system, or collects and disposes of the water used as an environmental hazard.

I don't believe there is a water treatment plant in the country who wants to hear that its' customers are flushing down engine oils in any amounts. If there were, you'd have a dishwasher installed in every motor repair shop around.

Dean often talks about the people in the world who do not have access to clean water, but clean water is so familiar to us that we often don't even think about how poorly we treat it before we send it back out into the environment.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

I don't know how much heat is required to properly bake the powder coat but would a heatgun suffice? And if that won't produce enough heat could you maybe use a few hotplates inside an insulated box of some kind. And I have another question, can you heat the part by placing it on a hot surface, or do you have to have equal heat on all sides?

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

It needs to be heated evenly on all sides.

That's why you see parts being hung inside an oven--so all the powder bakes evenly.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

Would it be possible to use a kiln? I know that the art department at my school has one, but I'm not sure how big it is. but theres got to be a way to hang parts inside.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

I work at sears as well, its a fun toy to play with. We used a lp heating lamp to bake the powder coat on some racks for a deminstration.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

WARNING.......resurrection of a semi-dead thread! :p


Since there was quite a bit of interest in powder coating I decided to do a pictorial step by step of it for any of you considering it or were curious about it. Instead of creating a whole new thread I just decided to build off the one we already had, none of the previous info in here is outdated anyhow. CD is kind of slow being the summer now, I just got done doing some powder coating while photoing the whole thing for my own website, plus I'm still getting occasional PMs or emails about the info I posted earlier in this thread, so away we'll go...................

(The part in the attached pics is the dual groove water pump pulley for a 260/289/302/351w Ford with power steering.)

(I also want to say that between the powder coater from Eastwoods, a few small jars of powder and the toaster oven, I have less than $300 invested in this. Powder coating isn't as expensive as you may think. While it's more costly than paint it holds up better, and the size of the parts you can do is only limited by the size of your oven)

For powder coating to adhere properly the part MUST be clean. No paint, rust or oils can be on it. You can clean a part with a wire brush, scotchbrite, sandpaper, or sandblasting depending on what's on the part.

The part must be metal (to attract the powder) plus it must be able to withstand the heat of the oven, 450 degrees.

[PIC #1]
I used a sandblasting cabinet to clean the old paint and surface rust from the pulley. With the multiple curved surface areas of the pulley this was the easiest method. I used aluminum oxide to do this.

The pulley was blown off with compressed air after being removed from the cabinet. At no time did I touch the pulley with my bare hands once it was sandblasted, just the oils in your skin could cause adhesion problems, use gloves. Also if you're using clear or translucent powders your finger prints could show through.

[PIC #2]
The pulley was tied to the oven rack with metal wire. This is very important. The pulley must hang clear so the powder can be applied and the metal wire allows the part to be grounded so the powder could be applied and stick to the part. It would be nice to be able to do this in a booth, but I don't have one, and due to the lack of space I have to work in it was done outside. The powder coating gun is visible in the background. This is the Eastwood model. It's almost like a spray gun. The powder cup screws on underneath, you clip an air line to it, and unlike a spray gun it also has a cord for the voltage. The static charge is what will attract and hold the powder to the metal part. I wore a dust mask when powdering, there is "overspray" or stray powder that floats around. All this stray powder can be swept or vacuumed up.

[PIC #3]
This is the pulley right after the powder was applied. You can see it looks dull and course. Becarefull not to brush the part up against anything now otherwise the powder will come off and will appear uneven after baking.

[PIC #4]
The pulley was placed in my toaster oven dedicated to this work only. The oven was prewarmed to 450 degrees before the pulley was put into it. It continued baking at 450 for about 8 minutes. After the powder had visually flowed out, it was becoming shiney and lost the dull look, I turned the oven down to 400 for 20 minutes to cure the part.

I'm limited to the number of attachments per post so I'll continue this in the next post............

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

Chapter #2 ;)


Ok, we last left off with the part cooking in the toaster oven. After the 20 minutes were up I shut the oven off and took the pulley out and allowed it to cool. After it cooled off I unwired it from the rack.

[PIC #1]
This is how the front (faces the fan/radiator) of the pulley looks after the powder has cured. The powder is just slighly thicker than paint, you can still see the Ford part # stamped in the pulley.

[PIC #2]
This is the rear of the pulley (faces the motor).

[PIC #3]
This is the 6 slice "family size" toaster oven I used to do this. It is slightly larger that the normal toaster ovens. A nonfood use electric stove could be used also. I had to modify the toaster oven to allow the rack to hang, and I'll get into that in the next post.

[PIC #4]
Here's the complete powder coater laying on the garage floor. In the photo in the previous post you could only see the gun close up, this is the whole thing.

It has it's control box and all the cables coming out of it. The black cable leaving the left side near the silver post is the 110v power plug. The gray cable leaving the top is the trigger. When you're spraying and you want to charge the part you press this. The part is only charged as long as you hold the button in. The thin black cable is the ground wire with alligator clip. When the pulley was hanging from the oven rack I had this clamped to the rack. This is why you need metal wire to hang the parts from the rack, you need to make the ground and continue the electric circuit. The gun is the last thing all the way to the right (pointing at the GoJak). Just to the left of where the black cable enters the gun is where you hook the air line to it. It has a trigger to control the powder output. The powder container attaches underneath. The end of the gun has a metal tip that protudes from it that charges the powder particles as they leave the gun. They in turn get attracted to the grounded part.

Above the gun and to the left of the second GoJak is a container of powder. This is how Eastwoods and others ship the powder. Different sizes are available. Prices vary depending on container sizes and colors. They do occasionally have sales on the powders.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

The final chapter, #3

"Modification Of The Toaster Oven And Final Tips"

The toaster oven works well. I would like a regular oven but I'm severly limited in the space I have so this will have to do.


All toater ovens have one major problem. The rack is designed to slide in the bottom only not allowing you to hang parts in the oven. The rack must be able to slide and stay in the TOP of the oven.

[PIC #1]
Here's what I did. I took the oven apart so I could access the sides of the interior chamber. I drilled holes through it and attached machine screws with nuts. The screws protrude into the oven giving the rack something to hang on. I was lucky, I only needed to drill 2 holes since the stamped contour of the interior chamber supported one end of the rack on either side. The rack hangs down enough where it doesn't touch the upper heating elements. The oven was reassembled.

[PIC #2]
Here's what I mean about the rack mounted in the TOP of the oven now. In pic #3 of my above post with the toaster oven, it shows the rack sitting in the bottom in it's normal location. This won't work for powder coating. Regular ovens don't have this problem since they all contain multiple "ledges" for different rack heights plus with all the space you can hang parts and not worry about them resting on the bottom of the oven. With the cramped quarters of a toaster oven this problem comes into play.

[PIC #3]
Here's what the rack looks like and one reason why the oven won't be used for food anymore. Notice the rack is black and not the silver color? This is the stray powder that got baked on. You're just not going to scrub that off easy!

Final Tips:

If the part you're doing is oily or greasy, bake it for several minutes after cleaning it the best you can before hand. This will loosen up and allow some of the oil/grease to "bleed" out of the pores of the metal. Once the part has been baked clean it off again removing these contaminates before powdering it.

You can do one powder on top of another, scuff the bottom one first after it's cured. When do you want to do this..........when you want the color to "pop" or appear brite. If you're doing a light shade of green, blue, or red for example, you could first powder the part with silver to give the final color an extra "kick"! Also powdering with silver first is a must when you're doing translucent colors. It allows them to achieve thier brilliance.

Depending on where you're powder coating you may want/need air circulation. Remember, you're melting plastic so you'll have that burnt plastic smell. Also some colors smell more than others. I use my toaster oven outside, not bad, I've used it in the garage, ok, but I won't use it in the dinning room or even the basement. I don't want my rugs or furniture smelling like I have a plastic injection molding operation going on or had an electical fire.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

:ahh: Just make sure you don't try to eat anything that comes out of your oven after you bake parts in it!!!!!

Basically, anything you bake in your oven after that will taste like it was injection moulded. I would suggest that you use the ever-popular toaster oven concept.

-Q

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

turn your toaster oven upside down?

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

In the above pictures, if you look at the inside of the pulley where the grounding wire was strung through, it appears that there is a bit of built up powder where the wire touched the pulley. Is there any way to prevent that from happening? Does it even make a difference noticeable enough to justify correcting the problem?

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

Yes, there is a little bit of a build up where the wire was. I don't know of any way to get rid of that other than a sharp razor blade after the powder has cooled and the wire removed. The powder is capable of building up in corners just like paint and the wire attracts the powder just like the part does. The wire leaves less of a mark than the alligator clip or if the part was rested directly on the rack. I would say when tieing the part up try to place the wire where it would be less visible if it leaves any marks. Adjusting the air pressure and the angle at which you're spraying may help also.

The mark isn't visible in my case since that area bolts directly to the waterpump shaft. The spacer and the fan blade itself bolts onto the other side. Everytime I've done parts I've wired them up so the wire passes through a fastner hole. This way the bolt, screw, or washer will hide all or most of the mark once the part is installed.

I see your point, and I didn't even think of that, but I don't think it would be good for the toaster oven, or at least the one I have. The back of mine has louvers stamped into the rear panel facing one way. If I reversed that then it may not vent properly. It may not start a fire but it may cook hotter/colder than what I set the knob to. Unless I wanted to conduct an experiment with it empty and a thermometer before hand I wouldn't try it.

The top of the oven also lacks feet so it would have to be propped up on something.

Toaster oven are simple devices and there isn't much to them. It took less than an hour to remove the screws, take off the cover, drill the holes, mount the screws, and then replace the cover and screws. The rack doesn't exactly "slide" but it can be placed in there and stay up top so the parts can be suspended.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

Signal Red, Rainforest Green, Satin Black, Signal Blue...


Hey! Where's the Woodside Orange? :ahh:

Not much of a selection they offer. I would only consider buying this if there was some way to purchase more colors. I know absolutely nothing about this so is it possible to use just any-old-powder? Or can you only use the powders from sears (with the sears gun of course).

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

Yes, You should beable to use different powders with different guns. You just have to look at the sears book and see what you can use. I haven't used powder coating systems too much but I think there are diff grain powders and a few other things that make the powder unique. Or you can just go look on ebay to see what powder you can buy for it.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

A kiln would probably be better than an oven because you are essentially baking the powder on, the same way you would bake a glaze onto a piece of pottery or something like that. kilns produce a tremendous amount of dry heat, but it might be too much heat.

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

Great Post Jay.... Think WE can do a little of that this year????? :rolleyes:

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

The powders can be used with different guns as sparksandtabs said. Even though I use the Eastwoods gun (and also they're powders currently since I hold an account with them) there's no reason I couldn't use the others. I got the Eastwoods since in addition to the account I hold it was also on sale a year ago when I got it. If you keep an eye out you will find the Sears and Eastwoods powder coating systems on sale from time to time.

The steps and procedures I went through above are the same no matter what brand of gun or powder you're using. The steps are also the same whether you're powdering engine parts to a 289 small block Ford, like I showed above, or if you're powdering brackets or sprockets for your robot. I went through this since there was quite some interest in powders last year. A lot of people wondered what the process was and that's what I went through. Now that they've come out with these "hobbiest" gun versions for $100 - $150 they're with in reach and a good alternative to paints.


Here are some links to powder coating systems and powders from reputable places that may interest you. Each place does offer some unique colors the others don't. There are also other places out there besides these.

Caswells powder coating system

Caswell Plating's colors

Eastwoods Hot Coat system (this is the one I have)

Eastwoods colors (you have to click to the adjacent pages to see the rest)

Sears powder coater and colors

Becareful of a kiln, gas fired appliances are a no-no. The powder (or any powder for that matter) can be ignited. That is why they say an electric range or toaster oven to be used for curing purposes. I don't know if they have electric kilns, the few I've seen have been natural gas or propane fired.

Most powders when fully cured will resist temps to about 350 degrees. I saw Eastwoods now is offering a few colors (silvers and grays currently) good to 1000 degrees for use on exhaust manifolds.

Yes, I'd like to. It'd make our robot different from most of the others unless 500 teams run out now and buy a powder coating set up! ;) With the '68 Mustang I've been using the silvers, grays, and blacks for the engine compartment but there's no reason I couldn't do any of the other colors.

I can see it now, I'm going to out in the garage to 3 am the day before shipping because we changed the design and I need to redo the parts! :p
Now that would be FIRST dedication! :D

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

Few more questions about the actual finish. is this the super strong power that you can hit with a hammer and it will only dent? also can you tape it up for diff designs?, if so do you take the tape of prior fireing it?

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

can someone explain a "Powder Coat System"?

Thanks,

Pavan

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

Wikipedia is a wonderful thing. linky

Re: Powder Coat System from Sears?!?!
 

I don't know how it would stand up to a hammer hit. I haven't powdered any junk parts to find out.

They sell a high temp fiberglass masking tape for masking off areas of parts that you don't want the powder on. They also offer silicone plugs you can put in threaded holes to keep the powder out of. The masking tape and silicone plugs stay on for the baking process. I have both of these and I have yet to use the plugs. This is the exact powder coating kit I have and it came with both of these products. The tape is not highly sticky, you wouldn't want it to leave a residue from the baking heat, but it does it's job.

I've never tried any designs or know of anyone who has, though I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. You would have to tape off and do each color separatly, curing (baking) one before doing the other.