Painting and Scheduling

[DampRobot]

We've recently been working to acquire powdercoating and anodizing sponsors, and have begun to realize that painting really does take a while. Parts have to be test assembled, cleaned, sent off to sponsors (or actually painted, if you can do that yourself), picked up, re-finished (if bearing holes or tapped holes got painted over, for example), and then re-assembled into the final assembly. Of course, this is all assuming that you never want to iterate that part of the robot ever again. I'm beginning to think that painting a fair fraction of the robot could potentially knock three to five days out of our schedule, much more than I would suspect most teams dedicate to it.

How do teams that paint much or all of their robot every year handle all this time in their scheduling? When is it typically done, how long does it typically take, and how do you make the call that an assembly works well enough as-is to be worth painting or coating? What are the logistical tricks associated with painting a robot during the season?

Finally, does anyone have any design/machining tips for parts that are meant to be powdercoated or anodized?