Tips and tricks for prepairing trail armor for powder coat?

I have full trail armor and winch bumper arriving soon. The place I work will powder coat as long as I do all the prep.
I have a angle die grinder with sanding disks. I figure I would round off all sharp edges and grind smooth visible welds. I also plan on sandpaper roughing all the surfaces for the powder coat to adhere well.

Any ideas you guys have to save time and elbow grease?

 

Save time and money by rattle canning it, easy touch ups.

 

To maximize the durability and longevity of the powder coat, you want to sand blast the steel to "near-white metal clean" (SSPC SP-10), which basically takes all mill scale, dust, grease, etc. off of it and creates an angular profile in the metal surface for the powder to bond to. The next step down from that would be power cleaning (SSPC SP-3) with hand tools, but it will be difficult to get a uniform surface profile in interior corners, etc. on a bumper.

If your work does powder coating, do they also do sand blasting? Usually they go together - see if they will show you how to operate the equipment yourself and do it after work some day. It's weirdly fun, like pressure washing dirty concrete.

 

Sand blast or just spray can it. You won’t be able to eat in the right spots with a sanding disc.

 

Unfortunately our sandblaster at work is much too small to fit a bumper or sliders. But I could get a cheap HF sandblaster and blast the parts in the back field which I think is in air line range.
Thanks, great idea. Way less work with better results.

By the way...just finished fitting the All Pro tube rear bumper. I am amazed, fits perfect, the bumper is aligned with the tail gate and all the bolt holes line up. cheers All Pro

 

Wow, you had better luck than I did lol. I had to re-drill 5 out of 9 mounting holes for my AP front plate bumper.

 

I agree. Powdercoating is a waste of time and money. Its going to get scraped off anyway.

 

Ouch, that's my experience with most aftermarket parts. I even had my die grinder and BFH out for this fitting.

 

Youre gonna want to saw your hand off after grinding welds with a die grinder. Go to tractor supply or another hardware store, spend 30 bucks on a proper 4.5" angle grinder and about 5 flap disks. Trust me, I know from experience.

 

I appreciate your opinions but I find rattle can to chip very easily and loose it's gloss quickly. Now this maybe because Cali has regulated paint into s**t.
I figure prep is the same for powder coat and rattle can so I don't see a time savings.
Were I work I we do parts for the Navy so I'll get a mil spec primer and powder coat for free. I my case powder coat is the way to go.

 

I have a nice Dewalt 5" with a course flap disk but I thought it would be to aggressive. I'll give it a try.

 

I've built 2 bumpers from scratch. The first I rattle canned, the second I had powder coated. Without a doubt the powder coated bumper held up and looked better. Even after being bashed on the rocks the powder coat was better. For those scratches that went clear through to the metal, I touched them up with paint. Because the rock rash was only on the bottom the paint touch ups were hard visible. The powder coat held up better to the trail pinstriping than the rattle can did. I'd never go with a rattle can for anything that I cared how it looked, and in your case of getting powder coat for free, well that's a no brainer.

 

Thats perfect. Start with a 40 grit disc to get the bulk of the material, then go to an 80 grit to finish sand.

 

Damn, that was a lot of work yesterday and I still have a little more to go on just the rear bumper. I can now see why quotes for sand basting are so high.
The HF spot sandblaster was not so good. It consumes grit fast and seems like half of it bounced right back into my face. Ended up using the blaster only for the welds and any place I could not reach with the angle die grinders. Mostly used flap sanding wheels and scotch bright disks. Used a deburring knife for the inside holes.
Definitely not looking forward to the front bumper and sliders.

I do have a question. Will powder coat stick to surface rust stains or does the metal surface need to be shiny clean?

 

Rust "shadows" are ok, as long as it isn't actually remaining corrosion. Try not to take off any more material than you have to with the power tools to get to a clean surface.

 

I have found that the ACE Hardware brand "Rust Stop" paint to be my favorite rattle can to date.

It's cheap like $5-$6 a can.

It doesn't have that fast drying feature that all other name brand paints like to tout.

It stays tacky much much longer allowing excellent bonding of each layer you apply.

Then once it's fully dried and cured, it resist chipping way way better than the name brand paints.

 

When spay canning I generally use Rust-Oleum Professional primer and paint. If you have tried this paint, does the ACE paint compare better in your opinion?

 

My experience with Rust-Oleum rattle cans as well as PlastiCote, Hammerrite, and several other name brands is that they all are the fast drying paints. And this is fine for items that are porous/textured, don't move or won't have a likely chance of being scratched.

The slower drying/curing time that the cheap ACE Rust Stop offers seems to hold up a lot better to abrasion without chipping.

 

I was taught in my high school collision class to buff the bare metal with a scotch brite pad. Sanding so that it is shiny is unnecessary. The primer just needs something to grip to, so the tiny scratches left by a scotch brite pad provide that.

 

Sounds good, I think I 'll give the ACE paint a try. Epoxies seem to act the same. The 5 minute set is much more brittle that 45 minute epoxy.