Originally Posted by
unterhausen
powder and decals is a bit tricky. There are some decals for powder. Sometimes people shoot clear coat over the decals and powder. Others have a contrasting color powdercoated, put vinyl masks on, shoot the top coat of powder, do a partial cure, weed the masks and then do a full cure. That sounds expensive.
Masks can be done with a cheap vinyl cutter or farmed out to a sign making shop. I am not particularly happy with the local powder coat company, so my next frame will probably be wet paint. Thinking of getting decals from Velocal. I thought about getting a painter to use masks, but either way I have to get the artwork done.
If it only would warm up enough to shoot paint. Actually is probably warm enough today, but I'm nowhere near ready.
Yes, so far, I have simply had Fastsign make mine. They are fast, cheap and easy to work with. My decals simply go over the top and aren't clear coated. They are UV protected but they are thick and it's clear they are just stuck on over the coating.
I talked with Victory Circle and they no longer make their thermal resistant decal that goes between powder coat coatings (ie under a clear powder coat). And they're too busy for a small builder anyway.
I've been really happy with Seattle Powder Coat. The only problem is with powder coat in general. It's really easy to have pin holes in the fillets and when the coater media blasts to prep the frame, they blow out whatever (flux/dust etc.) is plugging/hiding the hole. After it's coated, they REALLY are obvious. With these last 4, I tried to be meticulous about cleanliness and prep to avoid pinholes. After the fillets were polished, I still found a few holes - much less than I have previously but maybe 3 or 4 in total. I cleaned them up or drilled them out slightly and then soaked a thin layer of silver over the top and blended it all together. They aren't structural so, no worries there. They are the kinds of things that a painter would fix with bondo if using wet paint.
After dinner tonight, I did some upholstery:
Tomorrow, I need to do some serious clean up and organizing. For the past week or so, things have been piling up and I haven't had time to put stuff away.