OK folks....just a brief note on surface preperation.
A lot of schools of though are split on this one. There are basically two types of adhesion at play. Mechanical and Chemical bonds. Some are gung-ho on the chemical side whereas yours truly likes the Mechanical. (assume we're deciding wether to put a nut and bolt onto something or to superglue it if that helps).
I've found that in preperation for
most types of powder coating, a nice degrease,media blast and solvent wash works best. Of course....the solvent wash could be parlayed by a phosphate wash to get you that home run on your parts. This is what I've found best let's say on mild steel that's fresh from tha machine shop or taken off of one of my cars.
1) Degrease with a nice solvent. Anything that basically takes the grime and process oils off. Mineral Spirits will do just fine. Wipe off excess solvent with a rag and let dry.
2) Media blasting. While I do prefer a nice black oxide sandblast to either remove old finishes or paints, it's also a good "surface prep" due to the profile that is acheived. Glass bead to heavy rough oxide falls within this category.
3) Washdown and smut removal. There are a lot of different directions one could go with here. One way is an ultrasonic clean and a dry off stage in a warm oven. Others may just blow off with compressed air and a quick wipe down with denatured alcohol. Still another process is phosphating the part and then coating. All are acceptable means of degreasing in preparation.
4) masking and blocking parts to not be coated. Caswell here sells some fine tape that you guys should pick up. Great stuff for high-temperature range where you guys are working. Simply lay it on at this stage and peel off after your part has cooled down from cure. Works much the same as masking for wet-spray applications. You may need to "help" the tape off by scoring a line with an X-Acto knife or sharp blade, but the results are fantsatic. Powder where you only need it!
There it is in a nutshell, folks. It all equals "what can you do before the oven" as far as how good your finished product will look. Take your time. If only degrease is available to you....do it to the best of your ability and be thorough. If only phospahte (which Caswell also now sells) then do a good job of it. It's all in the preperation. I can't say that enough. Show stopping paint jobs on cars don't just "happen" do they? NO way. They go through HOURS upon HOURS of preperation to have that drop dead sexy look about them. The same holds true for your powder coated parts. Take the time and use as many of these steps as necessary to compliment your work. After all....this is where the men and women get seperated from the girls and boys
. Aside from that....have fun with it. Take care all......Russ