Paint VS. Power Coated Finishes

[JERSEYHAWG / Glenn 4,487]

Mods, if this is in the wrong place feel free to move it.

 

Ok, In preparing for the 520-8 refresh, conversation came up regarding painting vs powder coating of the main body parts. Hood, pan, belt guards, footrests etc. 

 

I am by no means any expert on either, can you learned men give the pros and cons of using paint vs powder coating. Of course you want it to look good, wear good, touch ups etc.  Also, money wise, what's better? Since I didn't hit the lottery yet, that seems a fair part of the equation to.

 

Just trying to get a feel for what I want to do, and I don't remember this ever being brought up before. Let's try to learn something here. < that's me talking to me. As always, thanks for comments.

 

Glenn

[benji756 341]

I had the rims on my 520h power coated and it was the best thing I could have done to them, it was $20 a rim.

[AMC RULES 36,943]

I just typed the words "paint powder coat" into the search window...

pages on top of pages of post on the topic came up Glenn.   

Edited September 29, 2016 by AMC RULES

[Ken B 3,116]

I don't think I would powder coat the main panels. I have seen some tractors done this way and IMHO they didn't turn out so nice...  It all comes down to the condition of the panels and the quality of work from the guy doing the powder coating. I would want a 520-8 to turn out real nice..

[953 nut 51,540]

Take a look at posting "in my shed 520H", pm him about price etc..

[bmsgaffer 2,043]

Somehow some people get powder coating very cheap, but most of us dont. Powder coating is most durable but once it does get cracked or scraped its the hardest to repair.

 

My plan is to have wheels powder coated because they take the most abuse especially mounting tires. The rest would ideally be coated with a spray gun paint with hardener but that may be as expensive as powder coating, I havent priced it yet. Powder coating just wheels for me was about $300. 

 

You may consider just doing touch ups on the rusty spots if shes just going to be a worker and get the most you can from the factory paint, which will be the best hands down.

[Mike'sHorseBarn 2,626]

Glenn my soon to be wife works in the office at a powder coating facility, which means I have free access to powder coating. I have experimented with powder coating on many different types of surfaces and pieces of equipment, but I mostly powder coat the rim of my tractors and nothing else. I just like the finish of a good paint job better than powder coat. Don't get me wrong powder coat looks nice, but paint gets more glossy than glossy powder coat. I had an entire IH #2 dump cart powder coated and it looks very nice, but there are crevasses on it where the powder can't get to. Therefore when I had it at a show and it rained on it, it began to rust in those areas due to the heat treatment given to powder coated objects. Also when it comes to touch up, most places offer touch up kits that include paint cans and bottles of paint that have a little brush on the lid to cover up chip and scratches. Now her dad had a cub cadet 100 powder coated except the engine block and the transmission (for obvious reasons) and I think it looks great! Most powder coating places are not cheap and it just depends on how much you are willing to spend or if your local powder coating facility has a red color that can closely math the red on your wheel horse. I will tell you personally that if Id didn't have free access to powder coating I wouldn't do a whole tractor, but it sure as heck is worth having the rims done. I don't care for prepping rims for paint or painting them! lol That's just my .

 

Mike 

[RedRanger 1,468]

From my personal experience...Mike nailed it.

 

Good for wheels, frames, implements, parts that get abused-hard to touch up-not as glossy or "deep" as paint.

[DTOM 124]

Your also not going to get a color match if your doing separate parts with a same color choice.

[WHX?? 46,704]

Yes we talked a lot about this Glenn check out AMC's suggestion and you come up with a lot more pros & cons. . I did have a deck done a quite years ago now and it's holding up fairly well. It wasn't cheap but it wasn't real expensive. Like the others I don't think I'd do a whole tractor unless it was a trailer queen and a guy can make it shine like an apple.

5 hours ago, bmsgaffer said:

Powder coating just wheels for me was about $300. 

 I also had a set of rims done once and  it was only $125.00 but that was a few years ago already now and I kinda knew the guy & got the cash special. I think if your not quite connected Like Mike is they are gonna take ya to the house.

The equipment & materials isn't real expensive to do it on a small scale it's the oven you need to bake it in.

[Mike'sHorseBarn 2,626]

Yea most powder coating places want large scale orders and pieces to coat due to the cost of operating the oven. When they get small cash customers it almost isn't worth turning on the ovens for. For example I know of an instance where a customer brought in most of the pieces to a John Deere 110 to be coated (I know that was the first problem), he ended up bringing the pieces back 3 times because "it just didn't suit him" so they re blasted his items and coated them 3 times until he was happy. After that it was the company policy to not do small cash customers. Just the nature of the business I guess.

[WHX?? 46,704]

2 hours ago, Mike'sHorseBarn said:

"it just didn't suit him"

Maybe the power coaters should have done it in RED! Then again.... JD??.... maybe not  

[p38js 401]

Glenn,

I can not offer you any pros and cons to paint vs powder coat yet. However here is what I have done so far to my GT14.  I have had the frame, wheels and steering components powder coated the red is RAL3003 and the wheels are an appliance white that the powder coated had in stock.  They were sandblasted and coated in zinic for corrosion protection.  The rest of the parts were sandblasted and painted with PPG JP209 high build epoxy primer to fill damage from corrosion.  Let the sanding begin.  They will then be shot with a nice coat of PPG RAL3003 single stage paint.  The transmission was stripped cleaned and primered with zinic cromate primer then coated with RAL3003 red from a rattle can.  So far I have $300 in to the powder coating $50 in the PPG primer and about $200 in zinic cromate primer and misc. sanding supplies.

[82Caddy 851]

I'll say this and stir the pot some more, it's all in the prep work. Doesn't matter if it's paint or powder coating. Prep work is the key. 

 

On that note, do some calling around and go visit with different places. Example: two shops in the same town have completely different prices. To blast and coat a 17in car wheel. First place was 100$/wheel to blast and 100$ wheel to powder coat it. They wanted nothing to do with my questions and had a generally bad attitude.  Second place was 50$/wheel to blast and powder coat. They took the time to understand what I wanted done and the best way to get the results I was after. How they did it so much cheaper is my business was pure profit to them. Mixed my parts in with other batches of parts being blasted. They got coated when they had an open spot on the racks going into the oven. 

 

I've since moved on and have my own powder coating setup but for things I can't fit in my oven or don't want to do I take it to the second shop. They've always been fair to me. 

 

Like I said in the beginning, it's all in the prep work. 

[rmaynard 14,865]

I used to have a local powder coater who did all four wheels for $50.00. He retired from the business.  I thought many times about having all my sheet metal coated, but since the entire surface has to be electrically conductive, all the plastic body filler used on my hood and fenders made that impossible.

[TDF5G 2,051]

9 hours ago, 82Caddy said:

I'll say this and stir the pot some more, it's all in the prep work. Doesn't matter if it's paint or powder coating. Prep work is the key.

Amen to that.   It's all in the prep.

What little body work and painting I have done, this is very true.  I took and interest in doing body work when I was a young man.  I was not good at panel straightening and filling and I gave up on it.   I can paint though, and enjoy that part of it.  The clean up is a lot of work also.   The part I don't like is all the sanding!

Edited September 30, 2016 by TDF5G