Quote:
Originally Posted by rachelholladay
I really, really like the orange, especially with the black.
(Is each teaser going to use a different numeral system, roman numerals and hexadecimal next?)
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We do too. I caught our head mentor, who's been with the team for longer than I've been alive, digging the powdercoat too. Pretty much, I like weird numbering systems. I might throw a few logarithms in there too, just for good measure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by craigboez
Looks nice, that's a lot of progress for only a few days. In general, what kind of preparations do you make when getting items powder coated? We have never done this but may with our off season bot. We are also considering anodizing the frame and misc components. What made you pick powder?
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I'm a member at a hackerspace called TechShop, which has a powdercoating both and oven. We're also sponsored for a few pounds of powder from Cardinal Paints (really great guys, by the way). In California, it's really hard to anodize, as it's basically illegal to dispose of the chemicals involved. Powder is a lot more benign than the anodizing chemicals too, and since our students do all the work, we wouldn't want to expose them to stuff that's
too toxic.
Preparation is the most important part of powdercoating. We've tried a variety of methods, but the bottom line is that as long as the surface isn't dirty, you're going to get fine results. We sandblasted and cleaned the gussets with Simple Green, and for the frame members, we used an angle grinder with a wire brush or flap sander attachment to remove the layer of oxides from the metals surface.
For the actual painting, we just sprayed the gussets and baked them for like 10 mins. The lower frame we did riveted together, which didn't turn out very well. We tried for two coats, but ended up over baking. This gave us some egg shell. For the top frame members, we baked them first, till they got to like 400 F, then sprayed them. The paint even melted on a bit in the booth, but we baked the parts for another three minutes just to get everything nice and glossy. The bottom line, once the parts look glossy, take them out of the oven. You can over bake them.