Ducati Monster Forum

What is this you ask? Why...its half a frame to a oven!
Oven for what? POWDER COAT!!!!
What can it fit? WHEELS!!! ENGINES!!!! METAL GAS TANKS! and with some mods..A FRAME!!!

"But havent you burned your camera...your bicep...your ankle...."
Yes, and to add to that list will be this oven on some part of my body.
"Wait what is it powered by? I heard you shouldnt use a gas oven since the fumes can blow up."
Its powered by PROPANE!!! Yes that is a type of GAS OVEN!!!!
"Are you crazy?"
It has been suggested.

Just to note, i was picking up a piece of 20guage stainless steel and it  had a small strand of metal shard sticking out and found its way latteraly 1/2" through my finger. Its already tried to kill me. But not to worry....im to lazy to rip the protective sticker of it, im just gonna flame thrower the whole thing to melt the plastic off.  [evil]

Now the question becomes..Eastwood powdercoat gun? or harbor freight Chicago powdercoat gun? I got 4 wheels, 2 sets of rear sets a swing arm and a bunch of tools to PC. =)

(http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/4929/sdc10322.jpg)

Everything was made from scrap parts so total cost is still $0.00, the only thing thats gonna run me money is the fan that is will be blowing the propane heated air into the body of hte oven.

Cool (!) project! [thumbsup]

Make sure that fan can handle 400 degrees....

It sure will im ebaying some convection fans for home ovens, but im fearful they will spin too fast. I doubt the fan blades will see close to that temp. maybe 200 at most. Im designing the fan on the outside blowing cold air over the flame.  you can put your hand 5 inches laterally from the flame and not feel much, but five inches above it and it will toast you. once i get the heating part done (im still undecided if i should just make my own, or just pull one out of a used stove) ill calibrate the height of the burners and the distance to the fan for optimal temperature control.

just plain ol cool

 Don't you mean hot?

i have used the Eastwood gun for about two years now with great success. Surface prep is key, and if i didn't mention it before surface prep is key! Using good powder like tiger drylac(sp?) will help. Your oven will be great just be sure that the heat is pretty even throughout. And there is no strong air current blowing your powder off of what you are trying to cure.
On a side note, i have heard of guys taking old baker ovens apart or multiple home ovens to reuse the heating elements.

Eastwood it is! Ive been looking at powders from caswell. I cant seem to find the right powder to match that pearl white/ with gold rims S4Rs.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/DevilishT2003/duc/f9f26982.jpg) any idea where i can find?

I tinkered with the idea of an electric oven, but for the size of this ting, I would need 3 heating elements, and I dont have the wires to pull those kind of amps. The 3500watt elements pull 14amps per, thats 42 amps sustained for a durated amount of time. I dont feel like having an electical fire due to over heating wires. ontop of which, id have to run my own 220 connection since most ovens in homes (NYC) are gas here.

What kind of oven do you have? Homemade or bought? I ran out of sheet metal 1/4 way in, and while one side looks nice the rest is litteraly held together by what ever sheets of metal i could find (it looks VERY ugly) nothing an angle grinder and some spray paint cant fix though! So because of this, im not sure how much of a flame i need to heat it up to 400. Gonna need to do some test....hopefully it will be good enough for sustained powder coating, maybe even pick up some local jobs to cover the cost of the gun. :)

A cool project for sure, but I can't help wondering if cooking a turkey or a pizza in there would ruin it for powdercoating...

How do you think im gonna test it?

the way to achieve that pearl will be just like painting, put your base down, bake then clear with the pearl, bake. BUT....i would say an exact match will not be achieved, so make sure you experiment on scrap first. I haven't seen pearl clear, bu i have seen clear with sparkles in it....we call it Stripper Glitter!

and i have a regular house oven not large enough for wheels, frames or forks.

WHat do you think i could use as a base?

The way i look at it. a pearl gold is translucent so instead of having a highly reflective base coat i could jsut polish my wheels and throw the gold translucent right on top!

your base would be what ever color is to be behind the pearl. If you are looking to match the pearl white tank, you would use white as your base, then a pearl clear. Keep in mined that some clears will yellow a bit when they cure. Just be sure to run a test.

OK, i reread your post, so i think you want gold, your base coat will not be highly reflective, unless you have some type of powder that i haven't seen...possible. If you are going to polish your wheels, and coat them with a translucent clear, it will dull the polished wheels slightly. Powder Coating hasn't reached the high gloss level of automotive paint yet, it is getting close but just not there yet. The nice thing is that no primer is required for PC to adhere to metal.

gold is the target color, but im running into issues with PCing the wheels.

regardless, how many coats can that eastwood gun do before it becoems too weak?

If you are using propane you can just pick up the burners from the grilling sectino of Home Despot.  Then use the controls of a regular grill.  At any given elevation in the over, the temperature should be pretty consistent.  And so long as you seal it up, that should hold it.  in fact....  Have you considered just using a steel drum (barrel) on it's side cut in half so you can lift off or hinge off the upper half?  That'd be plenty bid for a frame, and already built pretty much...  And with a few burners in it out of propane grills and the normal grill style control for each burner, you could theoretically even control the stove heat sectionally to an extent....  just a thought

I already built it. so no im not gonna go find a barrel to replace it. lol and the point of this is to make it out of scrap so im not buying anything until i absolutely need to! Ive already decided to make tubular burners. aka black iron pipes with holes drilled in them.

However, everything i want to PC is a stressed member of my bike and theres still the idea of my swing arm and wheel snapping after i hit a pot hole. lol

That sounds like a great idea. I know that if I leave my Weber grill unattended while its warming up I`ve gotten it to about 650 real quick. If you can find an old Weber grill or( I`m not condoning this)  go to the store and grab the serial # off of one, the burners are warranteed for like 10 years. My friend found one in the garbage and he called them and they replaced everything for free.

not sure what you mean, i clean it after every use, just discharge and blow out with compressor. also you need to make sure your compressor is 'dry'. drain it first or attach a dryer so no water contaminates the powder. A regulator on your line will help control the air, this is a must, or the high speed air can blow the powder off the part....easily since it is just held by static.
Google powder coating multiple coats, i have read that you don't fully cure the first coat, and you can even do multiple colors if you wish by removing or the powder with a damp sponge and a steady hand. But i am not the authority on this.
I haven't run into a problem yet with my gun.
I have had my frame and swing arm coated, and i believe the wheels are from the factory. Not sure what your issue would be, with PCing the wheels. If you are in doubt about the material being heated after powder coating i don't think that is an issue. But i would NOT burn the powder coating off the softer metal parts(burning off powder coating is the easiest way to remove the PC, but needs to be done at 700 degrees, or so i have been told)...wheels and swing arm which could damage said parts.

hope that helps

RB