Powder coating without baking

A. Hi Jon. Please tell us what you do(the application) because such guns are available (see www.gts-ev.de/html_e/ts-info.htm#v_KUN, for example) but as far as I know the technology is far more complicated than traditional powder coating so the cost is probably out of range for hobbyists or occasional users. Good luck.

Luck & Regards,

A. Thanks Jon. There are applications for this, like when something large and permanently mounted can't be removed and put in an oven for curing. But your friend should realize that the usual, simpler, less costly approach is to make the parts electrostaticly attractive, spray the cold powder on then, then bake the parts to melt the powder and cure it.

Luck & Regards,

Thank you!

A. There's a gun available that sprays powder through a flame that's directed at the job. Its similar in some respects to flame sprayed metals such as aluminium or zinc. But these are expensive (as said by Ted above), and are quite tricky to use, and can give variable results. Generally less successful than oven cured.

A. Hi. Although there are no powder coatings that do not require heat, there are certainly clear coats that don't ... from brass lacquer to polyurethane to epoxy to UV cured nail gel to automotive 2-component clearcoat.

Luck & Regards,

A. There's a flame sprayed powder coating system available. It requires no oven.
Powder requires heat to "cross link" (cure), and this system provides the heat in a hand held flame gun a bit like metal spraying. The powder is heated while being propelled to the job from the gun.

A. Wes, there isn't anybody in the industry that would have tried this, so go for it and let us know. Sealing uncured powder under a catalyzed clear coat won't give you the cosmetic finish your looking for on a bike frame. The flame applicator won't either, correct me if I'm wrong Geoff, but I think it is only used for industrial type finishes and field application/repair type work, not highly cosmetic.

  Hi, Kumera, hi Ron. Eastwood, for one, offers their "Hotcoat" system, fairly much as Geoff described.

I think the answer to why spraying of melted plastic is not the prevailing method comes from looking at it from the opposite direction, i.e., if I were to say: "I am finishing my parts by spraying them with a glop that requires that the parts be at the right temperature, and my gun must heat the glop to the right temperature, and I sometimes don't know whether it will flow correctly or go on too thin or too thick or lumpy; it sometimes burns & discolors; and the overspray lands and hardens on stuff, and is hard to remove and non-recyclable! ... Why doesn't someone invent a system where I just put a static charge on my parts, spray a fine powder on them, collecting any overspray for recycling, and then put the parts in an oven where I can easily control curing temperature and time?" :-)

Conventional powder coating is simply a versatile, proven, highly reliable application method with more general utility than the alternative that you're enquiring about :-)

Regards,

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Update: I had been told, and had believed way back when, that the Eastwood "Hotcoat" system was one of these 'hot' sprays, but in checking into Eastwood systems, I see that they are 'conventional' powder coating, not a spray of melted plastic.

A. Since the powder just needs heat of around 350-400 for the allotted time, why not make an outdoor oven with coal/wood/whatever and stone/brick? Maybe slap it on a rack over fire or fire embers, might even give it a cool finish. Just a thought.

A. Hi cousin Colette. You can use that *type*, but don't even think about putting industrial parts into an oven that you cook food in. It's not that the oven won't work for that purpose, it's that you may eventually poison your family. If you don't draw the line at "food-only" in your kitchen oven, and instead perform a chem-industrial processes with your kitchen appliances, you'll soon talk yourself into doing others. It's the worst kind of slippery slope :-(

Regards,

A. The answer to your question is you can cure powder with anything that will reach up to the temperature that the powder needs to cure. There's always a plan B; get a torpedo heater, hang up frame overnight, see what you've got in the morning. Make sure nothing flammable is in the way of the torpedo heater obviously.