schlags62

I have to ask due to my lack of knowledge. Can you powdercoat plastic? I saw some colored A-arms in a guys gallory pics and I asked him if he painted them and he said that he powdercoats for a living so he started doing it on his RC's. Is that possible? How does the electic charge work?

Thanks for the input

RcRacer37E

I thought powder coating only worked on metal. I could be wrong and it can be done. My best guess would be that the metal was powder coated and the plastic was either died or painted. Im going to google that one and see what I can find, you got me wondering now...lol

calvin33

I am pretty sure you can only powdercoat metal. They may have been aluminum or alloy A-arms.

redbarton

I looked up powdercoating on Wikipedia and it says the object has to be grounded. How would you do that with a non-conductive object like a lexan body? Also, I can't imagine the 400 degree curing process would be good for it either. The guy you know must be doing aluminum parts instead.

rlem00

Having a grounded plastic is an easy issue to solve, back the plastic with metal, I used to do it in the lab all the time to spray free films on teflon. The one major issue is gassing. The majority of powders have a high cure temp and can cause the plastic to deform or gas. Can it be done yes, is it worth the hassle not in my opinion. Another way to look at is powder such as a polyurathane is essentually a ground up plastic that is applied as a powder heated up, flowed and formed back into a continous film. I think it was DuPont that was looking at manufacturing plastic body panels for cars that did not require painting. It was kinda cool, a green thing supposed to take a step out of the MFG process.

BTW I spent 7 years with a paint manufacturer specifically dealing with powder coatings. The cool thing about coating plastics is the solvents can actually make a chemical bond with your substrate giving you good adhesion and durability.

If anyone has any specific questions about this feel free to PM me with them, cuz I like to talk powder!!!!