Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/787158
Getting enough customers to pay the bills Q I'm starting a powder coat- ing facility and having trou- ble gaining a client that will keep me busy every day. I have work available from bike shops in the sur- rounding states, but it won't pay the bills. I'm looking for help on how to gain clients. Any tips will help. M.S., Henryville, Pa. A It would be my wacky think- ing that I would have in hand a purchase order for work that was large enough to pay the overhead before I opened a shop. Or I would have sufficient discretionary funds to cover my expenses for a year or two until my business was established. Or I would hit the lottery, in which case, I would sell everything and go south. Like most businesses, custom coating isn't an easy business. Hundreds of people scattered around the country probably want their bikes and ATVs painted. But there are hundreds of coaters willing to do that. You're going to have to put on a shirt and tie and a good sport coat and go for a drive, equipped with your calling cards and maybe a small piece of metal that you have coated REALLY well. Start looking for manufacturers who have coated products, and look for shops that have a lot of stacks on the roof. People are out there who are having a hard time getting a good finish on their products or have more work than they can handle. You should also be aware that a good bill-paying customer will want a good coating job. That includes good and proper metal pretreatment, good application techniques, proper cure, and a good quality-control program. You won't get it with a sandblaster and a handgun. I wish you luck. —G.T. Keeping vehicle coating consistent Q I work in the automobile industry, and my company is having problems processing vehicles for powder coating. What hap- pens is that about 10 vehicles can be coated with the same powder without incident. After that, pinholes and craters appear in localized areas, such as in the load body. Why does this happen? M.M., Monterrey, Mexico A The problem you describe happens when contaminants are introduced into a coating process. For instance, oil in your com- pressed air and/or airborne silicone con- tamination will wreak havoc by creating craters, blisters, and fisheyes on all the parts run when the contaminant is pre- sent and then go completely away on its own when the contaminant is not pre- sent. This on-again/off-again situation will drive you crazy until you identify the source of the contaminant(s) and eliminate it. Most coating operations outlaw sili- cone, manage their compressed air supply, control which substances are introduced in and around the coating area, including hand creams, lotions, perfumes, etc., to totally eliminate this contamination issue. —N.L. Building your own spray booth Q I currently don't use a spray booth to coat parts. How- ever, I can fabricate steel and wood, and would like to build my own spray booth. That way I can build a spe- cific size and style booth to suit me and my company. I have already built my own ovens. Do you know of a source that I could reference for specifications on the motor, blower, and filter size and location? I'm doing larger and larger parts, and finding that I'm sometimes losing more powder on the floor than I'm spraying on the part. Thanks for any suggestions. M.B., Rochester, N.Y. A I hope you didn't make the oven out of wood! Or the booth! Believe it or not, I've seen it done. And I ran as quickly as I could. Your comments would indicate that you don't collect the reclaim either. I hope a fire marshal never comes around. The Powder Coating Institute's man- ual, "Powder Coating: The Complete Finisher's Handbook," is available at www.powdercoating.org and will give you enough informa- tion to do the necessary design work. The blower size is based in part on the size of the booth openings. This cubic-feet-per-minute rating is also tied to the number of guns and the powder-to-air ratio that will be pre- sent. The air-to-cloth ratio will dic- tate the filtration design. You can buy cartridge filters from many dif- ferent sources, and you can calculate the media in a given filter. To find a supplier, visit www.pcoating.com, click on the link for the 2017 Online Buyer's Guide, and search under dust collection. From there, you can fig- ure out how many filters it will take to meet the other requirements. I sure hope you stay on good terms with your neighbors! —G.T. 28 POWDER COATING, February 2017 Questions & Answers George Trigg GRT Engineering Nick Liberto Powder Coating Consultants