powdercoating poll

[DarkFox1]

I'm too far along on my truck now, but I've felt bad about not having it powder coated since I made the desicion, and I wanted to see what standard everyone else reguards their restoration by.

I had my frame glass bead blasted here locally, and then painted it with eastwood's primerless chassis black epoxy (about 20 cans of it all in all)

Have I screwed up? I mean what is the standard? We do have other project cars, but this is the only one I have a clear shot at of even getting finished in a reasonable time, and as I've said before, for every good resto of these trucks I see, theres about 5 bad ones, and I dont want to be one of the bad ones because of mistakes like this

[72 Super]

I am going to have my frame(if it will fit longbed) and other parts done on my 72.I wouldnt say you have done yours wrong.Look at all the trucks and cars that were done years ago before powdercoating was avalible.In my opinion its alot easier to have the parts powdercoated.But it may cost quite a bit more than painting.Thats my outlook on,everybody has different ways of restrorations.It depends on your resources too.

[imdarren]

I'm getting ready to powder coat my 67 frame.
This is how it was explained to me. I hope this helps.

If it's going to be a Sunday (Sunny day only) driver, then paint is perfect. Basically, if it's not your primary driver, and driven occasionally, paint is great.

If your restoring it to drive often. Even on many rainy / snow days, then powder coating would be better.

Obvoiusly the paint the factory used 30 years ago seemed to work well (unless you live in the "rust belt").
So I WOULD NOT FEEL BAD ABOUT PAINT!!
You have done more than the joe average 67 - 72 owner to help preserve your truck!

Darren

[Chevyman69]

Powdercoating is nice but not entirely necessary. If you paint it right it will last for years anyhow. My truck as an example was blasted and painted with Endura gloss black, I disassembled most of the frame, leaving only a few crossmemembers. Well now I am not happy with the fact there is rust still in spots where two pieces of metal join( this is a Canadian driven truck, saw a lot of salt) so I am going to pull all the riveted crossmembers one by one, blast and repaint, then reassemble. I even had to disassmeble my trailing arms because of rust in between, drilled out the spot welds, split them open, blasted, zinced and put them back together and painted. Once that is complete a final complete shot and she is done. My point is if you are going to do anything to the frame proper prep is required. Now if I had powdercoated this I would be screwed because to do what I want to do now, I couldn't and I would have to disassemble the whole thing and repowdercoat it. So once I am done this truck will be ready to go and since it will never see winter again it will basically have no real reason to ever rust, short of rock chips, but my paint is pretty thick. Powdercoat is resiliant to chips and so forth but costs 3 to 4 times that of paint. I am happy with paint but i guess it depends how you look at it.

[DarkFox1]

thanks for the info so far guys, love to keep the opinions coming

I have on plans on my tryuck ever getting rained on, or getting salt/snow under it. I dont even plan on taking it out when theres a CHANCE of rain. It wont be a daily, only on occasion. mainly for shows and weekend entertainment

The cost of powder coating is about equal to the price I paid for the cans of paint.. if not less. the frame has 3-4 coats of paint on it all the way around, and only 2 or so crossmembers where not removed from the frame.

the spring pads and that area was completley disassembled.. lotsa rust in there. This was coated in crorroless to prevent it from happening again. I reattached the crossmembers with galvanized grade 8 bolts and torqued them down extremley tight.

I haven't tested the paint for scratch resistantce, but I know bolts painted with this dont hold up at all to an impact wrench.

[mikep]

Nothing magical about powder coating. Its just another means of applying solids. Its gained a lot of popularity in recent years because its difficult to get working shops to apply the sort of coatings that are superior to non solvent powdercaots because of environmental restrictions. If you are doing it yourself and are not bound by EPA workplace VOC restrictions on the type of solvents used then there are many types of rock hard coatings that are as strong or stronger than baked on powder coats. These paints do not come in spray cans though.

[colohusker]

I have this same argument with myself every week. I want to powdercoat mine when I get to that point, but on the other hand I'm concerned about chips and scratches, since mine will be a working truck most of the time, with quite a few miles on snowy gravel roads. I know powder doesn't chip that easily, but if it does, how do you repair it short of blasting all of it off and redoing it? Paint on the other hand chips easier, but it's easier to fix. This week I want to powdercoat everything I can, next week I'll convince myself to paint.

As far as being a bad restoration, it won't be since you're taking the time and effort. The bad restorations are where people rushed and didn't pay attention to detail, not what materials they used.

Just my nickel's worth...

Scott

[Chevyman69]

I forgot to mention the chip thing about powder coating. i know a gentleman with a 68 SWB 4X4 that had the entire undercarriage powdercoated. He had the diffs done as well and while reassmebling his front diff he noticed a mark in the coating. Ignoring it he assembled the front axle and went to put it under the truck. Well the mark turned out to be an imperfection, oil or a fingerprint were on the surface. He ended up having to disassemble the diff, send it back and they had to soak it in acid for 2 weeks, blast and recoat it. Maybe this is out of the norm thing but thats what happend to him, paint, hell just respray. Oh yeah for prices painting for me was maybe $500 worth, I can't remember how much sandblasting was, not very much anyhow. Now powdercoating for my chassis was roughly $1500 and that did not include blasting the frame, it was a lot cheaper for me to paint( Canadian dollars of course).