Saturday, July 30, 2016

Finished With the Paint Booth

Except there is no actual "paint booth", just open air.  I bring my powder coat gun, and oven out onto the back porch, set them on a little aluminum platform along with a handy shower seat to make using the oven way more comfortable.  I do the spraying standing up alongside the platform, to minimize overspray of powder onto the platform. 

Today, I finished the last parts, the standoffs for the Z-axis.   Here's everything in the "family portrait", standoffs in front on the right.
User Malatrope commented last time
You know, I don't see any problem at all with leaving the holes open and then just running a tap back through them after the coating. Am I missing something?
I answered that the sources I was reading said to use a special "chasing tap" and not the one I used to cut the threads.  As is often the case online, that's sort of the Extremely Anal Retentive Person's way of doing it.  Since some of these parts have so many holes, I didn't have any way to mask them other than screws, so I used screws.  If the screw didn't go all the way through (deliberate experiment), a few threads filled with paint.  That paint was easily removed by running the screw through the hole again.  Didn't need a tap at all, just a screw to chase the threads.

Getting to be time to start taking the Grizzly G0704 apart and rebuilding with all these parts in place.  I need to look over all the things left to do.  I'd hate to take the mill apart and need it for something I have to make later. 


9 comments:

  1. Did you recoat the part that was a bit "thin" om powder?

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    Replies
    1. No, but I created another one that's got some thin spots.

      I had only one small bag of powder to work with and honestly didn't know if it would last through the job. Now that the first coat is done, I could try to get a light dusting on the couple of places that need it and bake them out. Multiple coats are fine; the rack itself now has a generously deep coat of paint on it!

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  2. Good to see things are progressing!

    Just make sure you don't use your machine to do anything that would go against Obamas new executive order:

    http://bustednuckles.blogspot.com/2016/07/obama-signs-executive-order-that.html

    The revolution is getting closer. If Hilary gets elected it will get ugly.

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  3. They look very good. And you chose one of my two favorite colors.

    If you had a larger third mill, you could do the Grizzly work on the larger third mill, but then you would need a larger fourth mill to do the CNC conversion on the third mill, and so on, and so on.


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  4. I apologize if you posted it before and I missed it, but what did your powder coating equipment cost, approximately? Only if you don't mind saying - if you'd rather not, that is fine. I realize it is rude to even ask. "Under X amount", would do the trick for me. Thanks.

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    Replies
    1. Unfortunately, I don't remember. I got it so long ago I don't even remember exactly when. Might have been 2005.

      The gun I have is an older Craftsman gun. I see them on eBay for $50 or $60 ish. Here's one (I have no idea who the seller is, if this is a good deal and any other disclaimer you can think of) The new guns that Sears sells require compressed air, while the one I have has a fan in it to blow the powder out. I've read the compressed air requirements are very modest, under 20 PSI, but if you don't have a compressor, that could be a problem. They're also $175 new. Horrible Freight sells a system that looks just like it. One of the big names in the biz, Eastwood, sells a starter kit with a gun like it but with more features.

      Personally, I'd prefer the gun with the fan than to have to lug a compressor and air lines around outside.

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  5. So what you're saying is, if you don't have enough masking supplies, then just screw it?
    }:-]

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    Replies
    1. ...wish I'd thought of that...

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    2. LOL! Me too!

      I should have mentioned using a chasing tap, not a cutting tap.

      But you are completely correct that if you have a lot of holes, it is probably quicker to just stick plugs in them.

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