powder coating a cub
 

some time in the future i would love to restore my cub cadet original. my question is: in stead of re-painting everything on my cub, has anybody ever powder coated the frame, fenders, hood(etc.). i didn't know if it were morre durable, or not worth the time. do they make a color that is very similar or matches the cub cadet yellow. thanks:American Flag 1:

I am in the process right now of powder coating a pair of 149's. I will try to get some pics taken in the next week for you. The powder I am using is from Columbia Coatings and the yellow is "safety yellow" TGIC powder. It is very close to the old Cub yellow. For the white , I am using "winter white". It is a lot brighter than the cream white from cub but I never cared for the cream anyway. This will be closer to an IH white. I am not trying to do things to factory...just to what I think looks good. The two colors I picked do look good together and I think with the brighter white , things look cleaner also.

Jeff

One thing with powder coating is that the parts have to be absolutely PERFECT. Any wrinkles or pitting will be visible, since they can't be covered with a thin coat of body filler like would be done with a traditional paint job.

I guess for me, it wouldn't be worth the time, as I'd rather do things myself and paint it. That way, I don't need the best-looking and most expensive parts to make it look like new again...I can hide pitting with body filler.

Matt,

You can use the polyester powder coat as a filler and you can wet sand and buff like a paint if you want to get real picky with the appearance. There is a sandable primer for powder coat also.

Me...I'm not that worried about perfection. It could look as good as paint if the effort were put in to it though. And the durability over paint is the main reason to go with powder. It isn't that hard to touch up either. There are additives to make it a liquid so you can spray it on too. Homework needs to be done when deciding to paint or powder coat. Me personally , I feel powder coating is easier than painting. You nailed it when you said the metal needs to be prepped perfectly to get a good finish. But when that is done the rest is a cakewalk compared to painting. It also helps to have an oven as big as mine. I can fit Cub frames , motorcycle frames and a lot of things too big for the casual coater using an old kitchen oven.

Jeff.

I hope the powdercoat you're using is better than what CCC is using, starting with the 'Cyclops' tractors...after 5 years, it falls off. That's the other reason I'd rather paint. I've got all the painting stuff, and no oven, so that's what I'll continue to do.

Time will tell about how long it will last. I do know for a fact that if I mess up a piece and want to redo it , the powder is a &%@$ to take off!! No matter which method you use though there is going to be a chip/scratch eventually in the finish if you actually use the machine for more than parades.

I have seen your thread on restoring your tractor and if I could paint that well I would probably paint. But I am not that good with a paint gun!! So I will powder coat.:biggrin2.gif:

Cost is another factor. Sure it took some $$ to get set up to powder coat but so does a good paint set up. The oven is home built so that helped a lot. One example is my brothers motorcycle. We did the pair of tanks , and both fenders. Turned out great!! Total cost for powder and electricity for the oven and compressor for bead blasting everything was a little shy of $30.

...And if it isn't better than CCC's it'll just peel off REALLY easy...hope that doesn't happen to you after all that work, as it looks great.

Got any pics/description of the oven you built? I'd like to build something to cure freshly-painted parts at 200 degrees F or so.

The biggest thing with powdercoating is prep work. Even if you have all the metal stripped, it needs to be prepped properly. My works powder line have a 3 stage wash system that clean the parts, and then the parts go into a oven to get preheated before the powder is applied. Then off to the bake oven.

We have a burn off oven for baking paint off, then it needs to be DA'd clean, before hanging the part on the line. Even with sand blasting, the parts need to be DA'd smooth. If not the water from the wash never fully comes out of the metal, until the final bake in the oven. Then it looks rough.

Jeff