@ Sean486.. Oh yeah, it'll get used for more than just 4 wheels. So far, it's done 2 sets of cast iron BBQ grills, Lawnmower deck, etc. It's a cool toy, just messy as hell.. Flat surfaces are a breeze, angled surfaces are, well, challenging, to say the least.
So now it's time to try out the powder coating kit that came in the mail. Over the last few years, I've become a student at Y&G university (YouTube & Google), so, a couple of hours of reading reviews, searching websites, forums. etc., I'm pretty sure I found one that will do the job. It would seem that a variable voltage output type is desirable, as smaller items need less voltage, larger items, need more. So do second coats ( clear coats ). I had no idea that something called the "Faraday cage effect" even existed. But now I at least understand how it affects the adhesion of the powder coat to the metal.
Variable voltage 25 KV to 50KV. Check
Air pressure adjustable at the gun.. Check
Comes with different tips......... Check
Pedal operated electrical switch.. Check
$300.00 later, well, if it comes out crappy, there'll be no blaming the powder coating gun.
But wait! If I'm going to powder coat, I'm going to need powder coat media. A couple of hours later, having kicked the crap out of Google, I come to the conclusion that there's nowhere that I can just walk into, pick a colour from a chart, and say "I'd like a pound of this, Please". Ounces and pounds are plentiful on Ebay, but the prices are steep, some places are charging an arm and a leg to ship to Canada, if they will ship at all. Some even want to charge to pre pay the Duty, of course, for a small service fee. Meanwhile, anything shipped to Canada, worth less than $50.00, usually doesn't get duty charged, as it's more expensive to process the payment than it's worth.
Now what to do? Get gouged and wait a week or two for the product to arrive, never having seen the colour with my own eyes, not on a monitor? Order and wait for a product that I've never felt the texture of? I think not.. There's one more unexplored avenue....
Lie! Lie like a rug! Suddenly I'm no longer just some putz looking to buy a pound of powder to re-do 4 esoteric rims! No! I'm now the President of a small powder coating company, looking to change my supplier! The first fish swallows the bait, hook, line and sinker! YES!
An hour later, I'm in the executive offices of a local powder coating manufacturer, getting schmoozed by the V.P of Marketing. Sweet! Some chutzpah, and a business card and I'm in! My only mistake? I brought my V.P of sales with me, my son. He instigated a brutal case of the "might as wells". "Well dad, if we're going to get this colour, why don't we get red, blue and green too? Then we can mix any colour we want." Well, it made sense, but it turned a 2Kg. "sample" into a 9 sample $180.00 order. For the purpose of this thread, however, I'll split the math into what I bought, and what actually gets used to do the four rims.
Now we need something to try it out on.. I figured the back handle of my trailer would look good in "Clear Burgundy"
