Powder Coating or Paint – Make Your Choice
In worlds of aircraft, auto assembly and appliance, debate has arisen on whether it is a good idea to powder coat and spray paints the metal surface. Truth is, both the options have got their benefits advantages. Before you will make the choice, it is very important to know the right answer to this underlying question — what’s the real difference between painting and Powder Coating?
How Does the Powder Coating Work?
The powder coating is one color-finishing method where powder will be used instead of paint. Powder will be applied with the spray tools & heated to the selected surface to form the color coat. Many ingredients will make this powder used for the process, like polyester, acrylic, epoxy & polyurethane. The powder coating attains the consistent and thicker finish than you generally get with the spray paint.
You will see examples of the powder coating on various daily appliances or household fixtures, like refrigerators, laundry machines, stoves, lamp vases and tables. The powder coating is very common today in finishing stages of the auto assembly. The powder coating can be achieved with thermosets or thermoplastics. Former is the chemical-free process, which relies on the heat to bring powder to the thick and solid-coat state. And in thermosets, the chemical additives will interact with powder during this application stage. An end result of the thermoplastic & thermoset powder coatings will be identical. In both the processes, you will heat powder to form color finish on the selected surface.
Before powder coating, you should prepare the selected surface to make sure right adhesion of finish. For the industrial applications, you can clean this surface — generally the metal — of dirt or oil that will otherwise hinder usage of powder.
Applications of Spray Paint
During application stage, powder will be transformed & brought to the adhesion state with the selected surface through electrostatic process, where powder granules and surface are charged jointly with electrostatic energy. When compared to the spray-paint applications, the powder coats are highly efficient thanks to electrostatic process that decreases waste by around 95%. Most of the color granules, which go in the powder-coat application come at the intended destination, and amount that don’t will be reused in the later application. The conservation of such sort is just impossible with the spray paint applications, where the stray paint is lost to wind. When you have applied powder coating, finish must cure for 10 minutes at the heat levels in 400°F.