Blasting Powder Coat

[gregs]

I am working on fine tuning my blast cabinet. So I am trying different medias, different size medias, air pressure, nozzle size, and air orifice size. I have it pretty well tuned and have blasted various pieces and parts I have laying around to see how it works. It handles rust, corrosion and regular paint well. But I have some Ford Ranger cab mount brackets that appear to be powder coated. I wouldn't think Ford would have used powder coat on something like this, but thats what it seems to be. These are the brackets that are riveted to the frame and the cab and rubber mount are bolted to. I cut the rivets and removed them off the frame for a project I am working on. Some areas the "paint" was flaking off in big pieces and had some rust underneath. Threw them in the blaster and it cleaned up the rust and loose "paint" without a problem. But when it comes to the good "paint", it is slooowww to cut it. There is really no reason to remove it for my application as I will just prime the bare areas and paint over it. My question is if this is typical for blasting powder coat?

 

[metlmunchr]

100% typical. A friend was restoring an old Nascar sportsman race car and asked me if he could use my bead blaster to clean up a couple wheels. Ended up they were powder coated rather than painted. I run Dupont Starblast in my blaster. It's a fine but very sharp abrasive with aggressive cutting action. I'd expect it to take 20-30 minutes to blast a 15x8 wheel totally clean if it was primed and painted. Took him 4 solid hours to get the powder off of 2 wheels.

Commercial powder coaters typically burn the old coating prior to blasting when they're refinishing previously powder coated parts.

 

[240sxguy]

All the pros around here chemically strip powder, I'd not be a happy camper to find they heated my wheels hot enough to burn the finish off.

 

[rockettauto]

All the pros around here chemically strip powder, I'd not be a happy camper to find they heated my wheels hot enough to burn the finish off.

I know this is old but burn off ovens for powder don't work that way. It's a rapid series of flashfires essentially. Each ignition singes a tiny layer at a time, then air blasts through. The part never really gets very hot.

If they're chemically stripping it's probably because they haven't invested in a burn off ovens.