TDN1979

Hello everyone, I have searched on here and have noticed that people are paying quite a bit of money to have just the case powder coated. How would you like to know how to do it yourself? It's not near as hard as you are thinking it is. And, you can do a whole computer (after the purchase of the gun) for about $10, and that is a high figure.

The first thing that you need to do is go here and select the gun that you want. You can spend as little as $90 plus the powder of your choice, or just do it like I did and get the elite system that has some pretty good powder. It also comes with plugs, tape, wire and some other stuff that you will need. When you get it setup and use it quite a bit, it will look like this...



You can also go to your local Harbor Freight and pick up a cheap Chinese gun that will do a decent single layer job. This is by no means a way to do second and third coats, but you can make it look really good.


Then you need to get an oven. I use an old oven that I had in my house till I got my new glasstop range (shameless plug I know ). You can get a cheap one from just about anywhere and if it costs you $50 you paid too much. Here is what mine looks like, it's been used quite a bit. And that is powder that is on top of it.

Edit: I am now in the process of building a larger oven. With my business venture growing, and people wanting larger items coated, it was time. I will update when I'm done.




Okay, you have the gun, powder and oven. You are ready to coat, hold up, you still need to clean the parts that you are going to coat. You have to get all the paint and stickers off of what you are going to coat. Remember that you are going to be sticking the parts in a 400* oven for 20 minutes after flow out (I will explain this later).

So, what is it that I use to clean the parts and get a great surface for the powder to attatch to? Why a sand blaster of course...



That little thing only costs $200 and I have used it more times than I ever thought I would. Now, lets start the coating process.


The first thing that you are going to have to do it take your parts out of whatever they are in. Here, I'm going to do the HDD cage and the PSU case. I'm going to do them in Black Wrinkle just cause I love that powder. So, lets start tearing things apart.

Here is a couple before pics of the inside of the computer.




Now take out your parts...






The only thing that I'm going to have to take apart is the PSU. PLEASE BE CAREFUL IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO THIS. THERE IS HIGH VOLTAGE IN THE CAPS EVEN AFTER IT'S UNPLUGGED. All you have to do it flip your switch to discharge the caps and you will be safe. Now, tear it apart.



It was time to take it apart anyway



You need to save this sticker, it keeps the caps from contacting the case and causing a fire by shorting out.



My kitty wondering what I'm doing to the new computer case, lol



Now you want to clean the finish off the outside of the case. I tried the sand blaster first but I couldn't tell the finish from the metal so I stuck them in the oven and "out gassed" them. I didn't really outgas them but that is the term when you are working with something like an intake manifold. Outgassing means that you are heating up the part to get any liquid or oil out of the pours of the metal. I mentioned intakes cause they are a "cast" when they are made. Oil and water will trap its self in there and screw up the best powder job. This caused the finish to dull and I was able to see what I was blasting off.




And here they are all clean, but they still have sand powder on them, not good.



What you want to do now is get you some Nitrile gloves and wipe the parts down with Acetone. You want to use a lint free cloth for this as you want all "crap" off the part. Otherwise you will get fisheyes just like you would with paint.

Now we are clean and ready to spray some powder. Now, this stuff really is powder, and that is where it gets it's name. It's a plastic polimer(sp) that is charged with a + charge as it comes out of the gun. There is a ground clamp that you will want to clamp to the wire holding the case so that you have a ground. I use 20lbs of air pressure with the compressor on my setup, do not go over 35psi.

Here is a closeup of the powder that was just applied to the parts, looks like crap and is dull. You just have to trust me, lol.



Okay, now that we have the powder on the parts it's time for the oven. I'm going to sound like a cook now but preheat your oven to 400*. I put mine at 425* but don't ask why.



Oven is heated and ready for the parts...



Now, close the door and wait for it to "flow out". what is that you ask? Flow out is when the parts reach the temp to "flow" the powder. You will see the powder go from a powder, to a liquid. When this happens, set your timer for 20 minutes. don't worry if you go over a few minutes, there is an overbake in the powder to give you some leeway. here is what they look like about 5 minutes in. It flowed out really quick just cause the metal is thin. You can also see the powder starting to wrinkle a little.



20 minutes is up and they are done!!



Here are some pics of them coated. The great thing about powder is, once it's cool enough to touch, it's ready to go together. For thin parts like this, that is about 5 minutes.






Now, just put everything back together and you are done. I also painted the inside of my case flat black just to help with the new powder. That and I absolutely hate the color that it was. But, the flat black paint scratches really easy and after I installed all of my hardware, it looked like crap again. About a couple weeks after I did this, they are now coated in the black wrinkle as well. The back I/O panel is Mirror black now and the bottom and front (behind the plastic) is Black Magic, that is pretty much flat black. I would add more pics, but there is a 38 pic limit and with the smilies, there is 38 pics in this thread lol.










You see, there is nothing to powder coating your computer. Give me a bit and I will have my entire case done. I didn't have time today to do it.

If you have any questions at all, let me know. I have started up and run a powder coating shop. The shop was not owned by me and there was a conflict with the owner and myself so I'm not there anymore but I still have a little knowledge left . Let me know what you think about the powder coating job as well .


Edit: There have been some people on here that asked where to get this stuff. Well, I thought I would post up all the links for just about anything that you would need for case modding. I have found a couple local companies that sell the same stuff as Eastwood so you may want to look around at your local tool dealers in the yellow pages.

The first thing that you will need is the gun as stated above. You need an oven as well but you will get that local. There are two places that you can get the gun and with two different prices. If you are wanting to just do a case a year or something, get the Eastwood gun. If you think your friends will want you to do there case's, then get the one from Caswell. You can adjust the voltage on the Caswell gun and it has a foot pedal for the power. The Eastwood has a hand button that you have to hold in order to apply voltage.

Here is the link to the gun on eastwood that I would recommend for just starting out. It will come with two colors and some other stuff that you will need for coating. This is the kit that I use and you see what it can do.

Here is the link to the powders on Eastwood. These powders are okay and it's what I used on the case just cause that is all I had.

Now for Caswell.

This is the powder that I would suggest that you use if you want the best results. There Xtreme Chrome is a lot better than any that I have found. I call it a 5' Chrome, cause from 5 feet away, you would think that it was plated, not coated. This gun below is rated at 16,000 volts.

Here is the Caswell CHEAP gun. This is a little better IMO than the Eastwood gun but you will have to get your wire, and plugs seperate. This is also a good gun to start out with for just playing around.

Here is a link to the gun that I'm about to get if I get a little more business out of my garage. This gun is adjustable on the voltage and will do multi-coats a lot better than the Eastwood gun. This gun is rated at 50,000 volts and as I stated, it's adjustable. I have used this gun and I have to say that for the price, it's a great little gun.

Here is the powder page for Caswell. You will have to click on the top right yellow links for the powder. There's just too many for me to link all of them. Take a look, I'm sure that you will find something that you like. All there powder is about the same and it will give you the baking times on the cans when you get them for each powder. Eastwood does not really offer this but there will be stickers on the side and you can always call them for the bake times.


Now for the blasting, I would suggest that just for shipping, you try to get them local as you can probably get a better deal. The one that I have I got local and it's the same one that you can get on Eastwood. This will give you an idea of what is out there before you go out and get one.

Here is the link to the blasting page on Eastwood. You can do anything from Sand blasting with sand, to walnut shells or you can even do Soda blasting. The last one is mainly for auto body and I can't really say anything about just because I have not tried it.


That is about it. I will leave you with a short vid so that you can have a littel better idea of what I did during the coating process.


Let me know what you think.

XFreeRollerX

Sweet stuff

very cool indeed + for posting so well

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Liability

Nice guide

CattleRustler

nice
I was gonna say "hey wait that looks like crap", then I remembered you said its "black wrinkle"

now I get it

+rep

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HardwaterH4ck3r

Wow....Rep+

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Hueristic

Very nice! I thought about doing this but the guy I had do my Mags told me you had to heat the Powder to 1000f? Are you using a new type powder? (This was like 6 years ago.

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TDN1979

Hey, thanks guys. I just want to clear up some of the myths about powder coating. It's not near as scarry as everyone makes it out to be. I have made quite a lot of money just in my garage with the little "free" oven and a $90 gun. It's just as strong as the powder that you would get at any shop for a fraction of the cost. This gun that I'm using puts out 10k volts. The guns that they use at the big shops use 100K volts and cost over $4000. Any of you can do this if you have the room for another oven in your garage.

I must stress, do not do this in the oven in your house. These are chemicals and they do put off fumes that can hurt you. You need to do this outside in your garage or workshop.

TDN1979

Nope, that guy was full of crap unless he was using high temp powder. I'm talking about the powder that you would use for exhaust manifolds. I bake my headers and manifolds for 40 minutes @ 400*. If it's not cured by then, it will be within the first hour that it's on the car.

TDN1979

Lol, I get that a lot. But, I have a theroy about the wrinkle. We are all trying to keep our cases cool and the "wrinkle" part of it should add to the surface area. More surface area=more cooling. I'm not a gamer but I will let you know if I see a difference.

And the regular powder will come out smooth. There is a bit of orange peel but that is just the powder and the way it lays. Paint goes on about 1/3 the thickness of powder when it's cured, hence the strenght. But, the powder can be cut and buffed just like paint and waxed as well.

Hueristic

I believe him, He showed me the entire shop. The cooking room was about 12X40 ft.

Do you have any links to order the powder? Funny I have had my old gas stove in the backyard for about a year now! So looks like I'm about all setup already.

__________________
I seldom argue my advice, It's free take it or leave it. READ this thread before starting your first build!!!
ALWAYS power up a Mobo Before installing it! Consider Less than helpful posts as Free Bumps.
¡¡¡ʍʇɟ qn1ɔ uoıʇɐıɔǝɹddɐ 939 ʇǝʞɔos ǝɥʇ:
[Official]November Foldathon Retro Rulez
This goes without saying but
1. If you can't afford to lose it don't mod or OC it.
2. At least read the OP before commenting.
Semper Fi