With the recent discussion of powder coating I thought I would look into it further. I have had some small parts done in the past for other restorations but I wanted to have a fuselage done (actually 3).
I talked to the owner of Little Rock Powder Coating and he said he has done two fuselages in the past and the price would be around $500, not bad for an over the phone quote. He said he did not use TCI powder but that his is just as good, I mentioned MEK testing and he said it should be fine.
Yesterday we went into town with a gallon on MEK to find out. He pointed us to a cast iron sink that needed to be redone and we tested it. I took a shop towel moistened with MEK and started rubbing on a small area (2" x 4"), within 15 seconds I could feel drag on the towel, at 30 seconds I lifted the towel and was able to scrape the coating off with my finger nail. Nope, not MEK proof.
This made a believer out of the owner and showed that I was serious. He is ordering 50# of the TCI 8000 powder. There was nothing wrong with his powder and process for what he was using it for, it just wouldn't work for my application.
BTW his oven measures8' x 8' x 30' somy YAK-12 project will fit.
I talked to the owner of Little Rock Powder Coating and he said he has done two fuselages in the past and the price would be around $500, not bad for an over the phone quote. He said he did not use TCI powder but that his is just as good, I mentioned MEK testing and he said it should be fine.
Yesterday we went into town with a gallon on MEK to find out. He pointed us to a cast iron sink that needed to be redone and we tested it. I took a shop towel moistened with MEK and started rubbing on a small area (2" x 4"), within 15 seconds I could feel drag on the towel, at 30 seconds I lifted the towel and was able to scrape the coating off with my finger nail. Nope, not MEK proof.
This made a believer out of the owner and showed that I was serious. He is ordering 50# of the TCI 8000 powder. There was nothing wrong with his powder and process for what he was using it for, it just wouldn't work for my application.
BTW his oven measures8' x 8' x 30' somy YAK-12 project will fit.