Seattle-Powder Coating
 

Does anyone have experience with a powder coating shop in the Seattle or greater Northwest area? Heck, if it's a fantastic deal I'd even be willing to ship it out, but I thought going local would be cheaper. I want to throw a coat on my commuter-to-be-vintage frame before I go head long into my car-free bike commuting lifestyle. :) Thanks for the tips.

Does it already have powder coating on it ?

You cant powder coat over top of regular painted metal. It can be applied over top of previous powder coating or bare metal. Dont know of any in Seattle area, sorry.

I know a ceramic coating place down in Auburn; they would know whom to call. No affiliation, though I've used them for some car projects. By my understanding, they do not do powder coating, just ceramics.

http://www.performancecoatings.com/

Greater NW: http://www.catoregon.org/

They can also help you out if you are having trouble carrying stuff on your bike (see http://www.catoregon.org/hpm/index.htm then click the pdf catalog on the right of the page).

A powder coater will strip off the previous finish before putting the new powder coat on the frame so it doesn't really matter what you have on there now.

I had a frame powder coated at PPC (Portland Powder Coating), the finish came out great. Sorry I don't know anyone in the Seattle area.

My point was that powder cant be applied over paint, the old needs to be removed which is an added cost.

Many powder coaters wont have the facilities to remove paint in a manner that is friendly for bike frames.
Some may sand blast old paint off which isnt what you want done to your nice and thin tube set.
Some will bake it off or even use a tiger torch to burn off paint both of which will also run havok with your tubeset.
Some will have a lousy chemical removal process and bits will remain, which then bubble up and cause problems with the finish.

Just be aware that if you want a great job done on an expensive frame, research who's doing it and be sure they have done bike frames previous. Many powder coaters do industrial work and not much bike frame experiance.

It's an inexpensive vintage frame with used parts and a few new upgrades. Thanks for the caveats though, I did not know that their were so many different ways of doing things.