Some time ago I had the tailboom of my 47G powder coated. I wanted a nice glossy finish which would last and powder coating certainly gave me that. It cost me about $120 to have it done and I got a nice thick glossy finish with a few bubbles in it, but not enough to worry about. Then recently I read about a powder coat system for home use. I checked out Harbor Freights home page and sure enough, they had a system which you connected to the mains and to a compressor and it would powder coat items and it cost under $60. I also ordered a sample pack of powders in different colors and when it arrived, I had to test it out. Well it took me about 3 hours to clean the mess out of her oven and I learned a few valuable lessons

The first lesson was, it doesn't matter how careful you are, you will get some powder in the oven and it will set like concrete and you will get into trouble. I went to Sears and bought a cheap oven for less than $200. Its the most expensive part of this whole process but the peace and quiet you get from not cooking paint withthe sunday dinner makes it worth while. I put it in the garage and thats where I will do my powder coating. I decided the first thing I needed to do would be the tail rotor guard for my Lama. Its always getting scratched so a tough finish would be ideal

The first thing to do is to figure out how you are going to get the part into the oven without banging it. When you bang it, the powder falls off with two results. Firstly it leaves a thin or unpainted area and secondly, your oven gets powder coated as it needs to be hot when you put the part in. I made up some small wire hooks and I found that one hook was sufficient as it was at the balance point.

Then we need to set up the powder coating process. This is the kit. You hook the spray gun up to the airline, the earth clip goes to the part you want to spray and you put the powder in the bottle and screw it onto the gun. When you operate the footswitch, there is a charge of about 50,000 volts between the gun and the earth connector and the powder comes out and is electrostatically attracted to the work piece. I found there was no need to turn the piece around, it coated both sides at once.

The piece has to be hung from a wire connected to the earth clip and I decided the box the cooker came in would make a good spray booth. I soldered a couple of welding rods together to make a hanger and clipped the earth to it outside the box. The compressor was set at 40 psi and when I clicked the switch and pulled the trigger a fine mist of powder came out of the gun and floated towards the workpiece.

I gave it a good even coat and it ended up well covered in this matt finish dust. I carefully picked it up with my pliers and placed it in the oven pre heated to 400 degrees. I left it there for about 20 minutes, opened the door and turned the oven off. 10 minutes later the piece as cool and the color was set rock hard. I have tried to capture the gloss but yellow is not the best color to show it. I am very happy with the results.

I also did the two supports for the guard as they are yellow also, but when I looked at them, the paint looked odd. I then realized that I could read the writing on the metal through the paint. I just put it back in the box, gave it another coat and popped it back in the oven again. This time, perfect. No sanding, no priming and no clear coat. However, like all finishes, you do need to prep it properly first. Sand it smooth and clean off the writing.

The last, and possibly the worst job for me is the cleanup afterwards. You know, get the acetone out and clean the gun, clean the paint pots. Clean the overspray etc etc etc. Powder coating is a bit easier. I used an old credit card to scrape up all of the unused powder and put it back into the jar. As long as its clean its easy, just don't get any dirt in it. Then I had to clean all the parts. Well its too easy, just get your airline out and blow it away. Anything in the oven is set like concrete so forget that, but everything else simply blows clean. Just expect a multicolored driveway if you have made a big mess and pray for rain to come soon to wash it away.

To powder coat, you need a conductive surface and a surface which can withstand 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Its no good for fiberglass but for small metal parts its perfect. I used about 2oz powder on my 3 parts and so my cost was $2 in materials. I am going to build a big cover to go over the top burners which will allow me to cook large parts like the tailboom. I'll use the burners to heat it and fit a thermometer to check the temperature. It will be strictly manual control.

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