>Seems to be a lot of attention being given to "powder coating" as a
finish
>in other fields. Don't know if it's increased durability, or just
cheaper to
>produce. But, I understand it can be a DYI project. Anyone tried it?
>
I have not tried it, but Eastwood sells a DIY outfit for a couple of
hundred dollars. You need an oven separate from the one you cook in,
since the baking part releases fumes. The oven has to be big enough for
the largest part you want to powder coat. The problem with powder
coating are 1) the coating is thick relative to plating, 2) it suffers
from the electrostatic faraday cage effect just like electrolytic
plating, and 3) only a finite set of colors are available. The
advantages are 1) more durable than paint, 2) more environmentally
friendly than paint, and 3) easy to do once set up. For camera covers,
I feel plating of some kind is the best choice, since the plating
thickness can be only a couple of thousandths of an inch (hundredths of
a millimeter). It is also easier to control the finish thickness with
plating as compared to powder coating and painting.
The Faraday cage effect requires some explaination I suppose. In both
electrolytic plating and powder coating, an electric field is created
by oppositely polarizing the item to coated and the source of the
material to perform the coating. In plating, a low voltage/ high
current flows through a liquid medium from a plate of the pure metal to
the part to be plated. In powder coating, a high voltage/low current
carries the powder from a gun to the part. In both cases, the material
is attracted to the high spots first, leading to greater thickness
thereon. For heavily convoluted parts, it is not practical to use
either of these methods to coat the part. A solution to this problem is
a chemical plating process such as electroless nickel plating. There
are other "electroless" plating processes also. In this process, it's a
chemical reaction between the part and the liquid solution that
precipitates the metal onto the part. This is usually performed at an
elevated temperature near the boiling point of the solution. All
surfaces are uniformly plated in this process. More information is
available on the caswellplating web site.
Be seeing you.
Dirk Wright
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