Good question - I've been curious about it too. I almost bought a do it your self system - but when I started reading the fine print, I found out you need to have a dedicated oven to bake on the finish. A few things bothered me about that - the added expense - the room needed for the oven - and most importantly, what if I wanted to powder coat something big that wouldn't fit in the oven??

They do however have some good looking options - I even saw a company online selling "glow in the dark" powder for powder coating.

 

I wonder how hot the oven needs to be. I wanted this for small parts. Like my welding Cart, and smaller.

 

I'm sure there was a post a while ago about someone who made a powdercoating oven from a domestic one that somebody was tossing out. The whole exercise cost bugger-all. Do a search and you'll find it.
Scott

 

I'm looking for an old used up electric oven for free to use as a powder kiln.

Look around at remodel homes for something. They show up every once in a while. And don't use the oven in your home... makes a terrible mess of the inside for future cooking and smells NASTY.

 

Hey Crackedback...

Check www.craigslist.com for use ovens in your area. Could find one pretty cheap.

I think I identify with your screen name. My back gives me trouble a lot!

 

The temperature depends on the finish and type of powder you use. usually the tremps need to be somewhere around 375+ degrees F to do the job. For home ovens this is reachable but they offer a small area.

Her is a link to some more info.

http://www.powder-coater.com/
http://www.powdercoatingonline.com/html/powdercorner.html

 

To powdercoat 6 dozen house number frames (fund raiser for my kids school), the local coater wanted $15 each ($1080.00 !!). I went to the appliance section of the local Goodwill thrift store and got an old GE electric oven for $25. Another $20 or so and I made a 220V extension cord to run the oven outside my workshop. I was able to cook 6 frames at a time. I should add that I also had to spend about $190 for an Eastwood electrostatic gun and powder supplies.

So for less than 1/4 the price, I was able to do it myself and now I'm set up to tackle more "small" jobs.

 

Thats what I wanted to hear Imagineer. I will look into this. I wonder if you could make a giant oven out of Brick with a Firebox on the side to make the HEAT .

 

I haven't done any powdercoating myself, but I have a friend in Alabama that does quite a bit. If I understand him correctly, the time of the cook is directly related to the temperature. IOW, (strictly for example) 30 minutes at 400 degrees or 60 minutes at 200 degrees. I did send him about a dozen of the infrared heat lamps (like they use to keep fries warm) that he intended to use for anything that was too big to fit in his oven. I'm not sure how he ever made out with those, but he was pretty confident that they'd work.

I do believe that Eastwood sells a pre-built IR unit as well (much like the heat lamps used for autobody work).

Just passing along info, might be something to take into consideration.

 

Thats what I wanted to hear Imagineer. I will look into this. I wonder if you could make a giant oven out of Brick with a Firebox on the side to make the HEAT .

How would you control the heat? When I was researching how to put together my own powercoater, the one constant thread was to control the heat within a 10 degree window. Most of the setups I found on the web used an old oven. I saw one where the person cut the opposing ends off two ovens and welded the pair together to acheive a 36" width capacity.

My setup is just an old beat up GE oven, there is no window in the door and the part on the top that holds the burners is gone. I store my equipment and supplies inside the oven and tuck it into a corner of my workshop when not in use.

I should warn you that the results were not perfect. There were a few bubbles, runs and missed areas. And the odor was pretty noxious. My downwind neighbor came over to see if I was burning trash.

 

You could make your own powder coating room. The guy who does my powder coating has a insulated room made of plywood and foam insulation. Heating cost must be enormous. Also, clean the items must be considered. If using old metal the sandblasting or acid dipped is a must. I'd suggest sticking to small stuff if you really want to do it, then leave the large stuff to a professional.

Perhaps the small stuff is expensive is expensive to powder coat. However, Recently for 300 dollars had a valet cabinet measuring 48inx72in24in powder coated and sandblasted that's inside and out side with multiple doors and drawers . I get rails powdercoated for 4 dollars lineal foot. Last year I had a guy quoted me 4 dollars per square foot. He probably gets that on small stuff. Though, even there I got 100 feet of wrought iron (real wrought iron) sandblasted and primed for roughly $1700.

Might want to check pricing for powder coating in your area.

 

HF sells a small powder coating oven. If I remember, it's around $330.

An old oven outside, under a shed works too.

 

A friend used a thermostat and elements from an oven and gutted a deep chest freezer for his powder coating. He has good results with that. Plus he can do some larger items.
Bill

 

I guess its a lot of who you know and how much you use them.

Our core business is aluminium and glass balustrading,so we get both extrusion and fully made panels powder coated often,in excess of 4 jobs per week.
When I set up the new factory in Nov '04 I looked at a small "batch" oven but when offset the set up cost against the price we pay per sq. meter it wasn't close to being worth it.

Admittedly we do get good service and fair pricing from my powdercoater, Other advantages were :he has a "line" oven so that we can give him 8.0m (25ft) fabricated to size panels .a line oven is hotter and has a better pretreatment than a bath .

Lastly he is a pro

 

There are two kinds of powder coating media available. One of them can be resprayed and reheated to correct flaws and the other once set stay set. The former is usually sold for hobbiests for use in less than optimal ovens. One can bake the part, respray any flaws and then rebake the part. The down side is that the coating isn't as durable as the other.

The better performing media requires fairly precise conditions in an oven and to the best of my knowledge needs a convection setup with laminar flow. It wouldn't be very difficult to build an oven like this, but it would require some thought. Getting a blower setup that can handle 400-500F can be tricky. Everything else required would be commonly available at a furnace or kiln supply. One could use insulated fire brick or kaowool. ****, I've seen kilns that go up to 1500F made of kaowool, plywood, and an ITC coating.

The heating element material is also commonly available. It has a given amount of resistance per length of material. One can use that and ohm's law to determine the current draw. As for controlling the temperature, I'd recommend picking up a PID controller off of ebay which are generally available for less than $200. PID controllers can be programmed to ramp up to a temp over a given time, soak for a given time, and then ramp down. If the system is properly engineered, the temp can be controlled to within a tenth or two of a degree F.

 

Works for me..

I couldn't resist picking up one of the HF powder coat units when it was on sale along with using one of those 20% off coupons, cost me something like $45. I was interested in using it for all the fairly small misc. stuff that I build.

While I was trying to figure out what to do for an oven I was at Home Depot and they had a bunch of these stainless steel electric roasting ovens for sale under $20. Pretty good size (22 quarts), plenty large enough for most of the stuff I would be coating and it went up to 500 degrees. I attached some rails under the lid to hang the stuff for baking.

I've done quite a few little things and it seems to work just fine. The coating baked out smooth, glossy and hard. The neat thing about the coating process was that the part attracts the powder into all the nooks and crannies, even behind where I was spraying from. Quick, easy, fairly neat and no long drying time

I'm happy with the investment.

 

Is seems hard to pass up the opportunity to powder coat projects when the materials and equipment are so affordable. From the discussion the only down side seems to be the ability to bake the finish on. Small to medium size parts should be easy but trying to do a welding cart, for example, would prove difficult to do yourself.

 

Make your oven using commonly available materials (inexpensive). Any kitchen oven will work, temperature wise. Even self-cleaning ovens which get up to 900 f for the cleaning function use fiberglass and aluminum as the conductive and radiative insolating materials. For conductive heating, add a metal fan running on a long hollow shaft connected to a motor outside the oven. No need to use Kaowool ITC100 or other specialized expensive insulator. The cabinet should be metal as wood would break down over the long haul and could eventually char and ignite below 500 f. Keep the interior sheet metal very light (foil), except the floor, to minimize the thermal mass.

 

but trying to do a welding cart,

These two pictures are of my current welding cart. It was made from square tubing and a cheap 2 wheel dolly.

I had the steel frame powder coated red at a local shop for $20. I made sure the frame was absolutely ready and clean and already had conductive hanging hooks installed. When I dropped it off, I said, "No hurry, just do it the next time you're shooting red." It was done in about a week.

FYI, once my new welder carts are done, this one, with the 20CF tank are going on Ebay.

 

This is an interesting topic.

I'm in the process of building my own powder coating oven. It is about 75% done. Frame is 2"X2"X2" 20 ga. galv. sheet metal channel, MIG welded together. The sides will be covered with 22 ga. sheet metal snap-riveted on with rock wool oven insulation in the middle. Inside dimensions are 72" deep, 36" high and 24" wide. This is designed as a dual purpose oven for both powdercoating motorcycle frames and other parts as well as some pre-heating and heat-treating for welding. It's capable of up to 500 degrees F. I have been powdercoating small parts with a toaster oven for some time and we typically will use 450 deg. F. for a half hour. Results are quite good using an inexpensive gun presently, although we will be upgrading when the big oven is finished.

I'm going to be using 4 2,500 watt oven elements. These are controlled by a 110/220 relay (definite purpose contactor) and an oven thermostat. We have 4 conductor 6 ga wire to the machine so I anticipate it will be OK. (Please, please don't start a discussion telilng me that i will need 4 "0" gage conductors Hahahahaha.)

I'll try getting some pictures on here soon when I figure out how to do it. Ha.

For some great insight to how to do this yourself, the link below shows how one fellow handled the problem. He used foam insulation which would be very good except for the cost in my area. He also makes great use of his sheet metal tools - and skills which are really very expert. This website has been an inspiration to me and the fellow who operates it is more than willing to help others who are interested. His website is the only one I've found on the internet that shows how to do it. In particular his wiring diagrams, material lists and general philosphy on the topic. By the way, he does not feel that a blower is of any use in this size cabinet and he's been doing powdercoating for some time without one.

The nice thing about this project for me is that it's motorcycle-related. That's how I got started welding. Also it makes use of other tools you may have (or want to convince your spouse that you need!) such as lathe, milling machine or mill drill, MIG, TIG and arc, not to mention OA cutting and brazing, all of which I have used so far on this project.

Coimments, scorn, disrespect and screaming are welcome. I'm also an attorney so I have a very thick skin.

GNM109

http://powdercoatoven.4t.com/

 

Oven Photos.

Here are a couple of photos. This shows the scope of the project. It's pretty big.

You can see how the oven elements are arranged in the bottom tray of the oven. There will be an oven control box on the side of the oven with on-off switches and LED's to indicate power on and when the oven is heating.

It also uses two oven windows in the top and two oven lights on one side to see inside when the oven is in operation. All of the parts came from a local used oven repair shop at very reasonable prices.

The worst part was buying the sheet metal which is very expensive. I don't have it on yet, except for the bottom pan but it cost me $300 for the metal alone. Insulation is $40 a bundle. Rock wool is used in home oven manufacture and melts at more than 2,000 deg. F. so it should do for this project.

 

Sorry for the double post.....they won't let us delete apparently....ahem.

 

This is an interesting topic.

I'm in the process of building my own powder coating oven. It is about 75% done. Frame is 2"X2"X2" 20 ga. galv. sheet metal channel, MIG welded together. The sides will be covered with 22 ga. sheet metal snap-riveted on with rock wool oven insulation in the middle. Inside dimensions are 72" deep, 36" high and 24" wide. This is designed as a dual purpose oven for both powdercoating motorcycle frames and other parts as well as some pre-heating and heat-treating for welding. It's capable of up to 500 degrees F. I have been powdercoating small parts with a toaster oven for some time and we typically will use 450 deg. F. for a half hour. Results are quite good using an inexpensive gun presently, although we will be upgrading when the big oven is finished.

I'm going to be using 4 2,500 watt oven elements. These are controlled by a 110/220 relay (definite purpose contactor) and an oven thermostat. We have 4 conductor 6 ga wire to the machine so I anticipate it will be OK. (Please, please don't start a discussion telilng me that i will need 4 "0" gage conductors Hahahahaha.)

I'll try getting some pictures on here soon when I figure out how to do it. Ha.

For some great insight to how to do this yourself, the link below shows how one fellow handled the problem. He used foam insulation which would be very good except for the cost in my area. He also makes great use of his sheet metal tools - and skills which are really very expert. This website has been an inspiration to me and the fellow who operates it is more than willing to help others who are interested. His website is the only one I've found on the internet that shows how to do it. In particular his wiring diagrams, material lists and general philosphy on the topic. By the way, he does not feel that a blower is of any use in this size cabinet and he's been doing powdercoating for some time without one.

The nice thing about this project for me is that it's motorcycle-related. That's how I got started welding. Also it makes use of other tools you may have (or want to convince your spouse that you need!) such as lathe, milling machine or mill drill, MIG, TIG and arc, not to mention OA cutting and brazing, all of which I have used so far on this project.
GNM109

http://powdercoatoven.4t.com/

---------------------------------------------------------

 

.......

 

Powdercoat oven

Here is my oven I recently built from the website mentioned in the previous post.I have used it for motorcycle parts and have had good results with it.I built it for around 800.00.I have the Eastwood hobby gun.If you guys want more information about powdercoating and oven building,I suggest going to Eastwoods website and checking out their forum. Jim