Designing for Powder Coating

[craigboez]

We have a new sponsor that is willing to do powder coating for us, so we're considering having our robot parts powder coated this season. For teams that have been doing this for years, what pointers can you give for designing a robot that is ready to be powder coated?

• Do you make dimensional allowances to account for the powder thickness?
• What kind of cleaning or surface prep is required before sending your parts out for coating? Do you mask off certain things?
• What kind of "clean up" is required after you get your powder coated parts back? Are bolt clearance holes OK or do they need to be reamed, tighter tolerance things like bearing pockets, etc?
• Any other words of wisdom?

Thanks.