I've known about powder-coating since seeing it in the Hot Rod & 4x4 magazines I started reading back in the early 80's. It's always been appealing for it's durable finish that is so resistant to wear and fade. Coating offers a finish that conventional painting just can't match and it's ability to "fill in" and smooth out the rough surfaces of many of the small castings that I plan to work with. Small errors in the surface finish are easily hidden.

A while back I picked up a home powder-coating setup from the Eastwood Co. I've seen them for quite some time and finally the price came down enough that I was able to afford it. You don't need much to powder-coat your own parts at home. Everything needed is shown here except for the powder itself.

You'll need three things to get started. ONE: You need a powder-coating kit; this will include the spray gun, powder and electronics.  TWO: You'll need a small compressor, as you can see I have a small Campbell_Hausfeld compressor that's portable and convenient for uses like this and airbrushing.  When powder-coating you'll use no-more than 10psi, I usually use about 8psi when spraying the powder.  THREE: You'll need an oven of some sort that's capable of going to 400*. An old kitchen stove would be ideal but I use a small toaster oven for right now. Whatever you use becomes a dedicated shop stove; you can't cook your French fries in it after powder-coating.

I found the kit on sale, bought the compressor used and was given the toaster oven so I have less than $125.00 into the whole affair. For a single Dad on a fixed budget, low cost is paramount.

I'd been waiting for a suitable victim to come along when I happen to cross paths with the nifty little toolholder seen in many of my more recent pictures. I keep several colors of powder on the shelf for just such an emergency. The toolpost spends most of its time on the Homer lathe, which is a dark blue so I figured I'd give Ford Dark Blue a whirl. Here's a picture of the toolholder with the holes plugged to prevent powder from getting to the threads. The tape used in the cross-hole is a high temp fiberglass tape that I bought through Eastwood and the wire is stainless steel safety wire that came with the kit.

I was thrilled with my first try. The finish came out smooth and hard and almost all of the jaw-marks and surface flaws have been completely covered up.

I was so pleased with the results that I tried again with a larger project. This was where the shortcomings of the toaster oven became apparent. If you have the room to set up an old kitchen range then I would strongly advise you to do so, the added capacity will make many more projects possible. I explored the maximum capacity of my toaster oven with the drawtube for my 3C collet adapter for the 7" lathes. I had cut a section of steel tubing down, pressed in a threaded insert I made to fit the 3C collets and brazed on a handwheel salvaged from a broken lathe apron.

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