I've spent about the last two hours digging through the archives and am suffering from information overload at the moment. LOTS of good info here. Maybe too much since I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for. It would take days!
To the point, I'm going to be just doing my own stuff for the most part. I have an affinity for old three wheeled ATV's. I just enjoy fixing them up. I don't even have any powdercoating equipment yet. I'm still in the shopping and information gathering stage. I don't even have a sandblaster, air compressor or oven yet because I need advice on all of them. Hope you guys don't mind.
First thing that I'm having trouble figuring out is what route to go for an air compressor (maybe there's a better section of this site for this question but I didn't see one). I need something that I can use for sandblasting as well as powering the gun. I have ZERO clue when it comes to this stuff as I've never owned one. What kind of specs do I need from an air compressor to make sure I get something that can do an adequate job sandblasting ATV parts? Most of what I'll be doing will be small parts but I may do the occasional frame or something. CFM, PSI etc etc? Tank capacity? I just don't have any idea what to look for or what I should expect to spend and fear paying way too much for something that's just overkill for my purposes.
Next is the oven. Basically I have two realistic choices as far as I can tell. I can get an old used kitchen type oven and have an eletrician come and install a 230v outlet in my garage or I can get one of those $329 Harbor Frieght jobs that run on 110. The kitchen oven would cost less but how much would depend on how much the new outlet ends up costing. Space wise they're similar. The big advantage the harbor freight oven has is portability (it runs on 110). Anybody ever use one? Comments?
Last is the gun itself. I see that people think highly of the entry level caswell but that the harbor freight and similar guns are just as good? How about that Craftsman gun that doesn't need an air supply? From what I've been looking at so far, that one has been the most appealing to me though I don't know why.
Any advice you folks could give me would be much appreciated. I'm afraid if I didn't start asking for help I'd end up spending a fortune when I didn't even need to.
I'm in Arizona by the way. Just in case someone has some used gear for sale or something.