Originally Posted by Katia
I bought my FW, Esmeralda as a repaint a month ago and I love her anyway. Now my husband tells me to watch for another in need of help. Not a perfect one, but one that needs some help cosmetically and even mechanically.
Billy, we have a relative that works where they have a paint shop that does powder coating. I think only black or white is available. But they will do painting for their employees for free, only small things of course. The painting they do has to stand up to constant public use, so I am sure it is good paint and good work.
My question is, do I dare? If I find a machine that I can do this with, would you chance it? Do we just strip it down to the paintable parts and go for it?
And then when we get it back and re do the decals, can we do the clear coat ourselves over the powder coat?
Sorry for so many questions. I just do not want to ruin something that is valuable.
I have never cleared over a powdercoat in my life. Powder coat comes in hundreds of colors including Chrome and clears. You can buy the powder from Eastwood and do it yourself if you wanted to. Very durable but you are very limited in what you can do.
With paint (I use automotive paint, mainly House of Kolor and PPG) the possibilities are endless and the only thing holding you back is your imagination.
But its not all that hard to do and like stated earlier find one that is cosmetically challenged to repaint. But since they are aluminum the chances of a cosmetically challenged one having pits and white rust is very real. I usually weld the pits up but you can skim coat it with body filler then glaze over that. After a few coats of a good primer then you have a nice base for a repaint.
Billy