So, you thought you could only powder coat metal? Think again! Powder coating is a great way to give a professional looking finish to metals and also to other surfaces that can safely be baked at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. You may need to finesse the process to get the glass to take the powder, but once you do, it's worth it! In this Instructable, you'll learn how to powder coat a glass jar as a finished piece, or as a surface for laser etching, hand-painting or other techniques. (Check out the Laser Etching Into Powder Coated Glass video here.) Then use them as gifts or in your own kitchen or workshop.
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Signing UpStep 1: Materials and Preparation
We will not address powder coating technique, but you can find it elsewhere in Instructables, like right here.
Make sure you remember that all materials you use for this project must be safe for baking at 450 degrees. Prepare your piece by removing all gluey lids or stickers, or rubbery gaskets, or anything else that's gooey and not allowed in the powder oven. Then clean it with soapy water, and let it dry thoroughly.
You'll probably want to work with several (3-8?) pieces when you first start because there's a learning curve to the process and it also saves time to work in batches. Further, if you're going to LASER or paint your coated pieces later, you'll need extra pieces for test strips and continued runs. You DON'T need to work only with jars: any kind of glass should work as long as the foil will attract the powder through the glass and you can work with the pieces throughout the process of coating and moving in and out of the oven.
What you'll need:
> Several Glass pieces between 4" and 20" in diameter. (rough estimates. it just has to fit your machines and be movable.)
> Hot soapy water and sponge or rag to clean materials.
> Powder coating materials, supplies, equipment, including powder oven.
> Heat resistant tape- Have about 5-30 feet for a project because you want to use it liberally.
> Aluminum foil. have at least a quarter of a roll to a whole roll for each project just so you don't run out.
> Conductive work-holding device, either hanging or resting, able to be transported to the oven and back.
> Gloves to transport the hot materials
> A clean rack or surface to cool the materials once out of the oven.
> optional: Wrapping paper or something to transport your piece out of the shop after you've coated it.
Make sure you remember that all materials you use for this project must be safe for baking at 450 degrees. Prepare your piece by removing all gluey lids or stickers, or rubbery gaskets, or anything else that's gooey and not allowed in the powder oven. Then clean it with soapy water, and let it dry thoroughly.
You'll probably want to work with several (3-8?) pieces when you first start because there's a learning curve to the process and it also saves time to work in batches. Further, if you're going to LASER or paint your coated pieces later, you'll need extra pieces for test strips and continued runs. You DON'T need to work only with jars: any kind of glass should work as long as the foil will attract the powder through the glass and you can work with the pieces throughout the process of coating and moving in and out of the oven.
What you'll need:
> Several Glass pieces between 4" and 20" in diameter. (rough estimates. it just has to fit your machines and be movable.)
> Hot soapy water and sponge or rag to clean materials.
> Powder coating materials, supplies, equipment, including powder oven.
> Heat resistant tape- Have about 5-30 feet for a project because you want to use it liberally.
> Aluminum foil. have at least a quarter of a roll to a whole roll for each project just so you don't run out.
> Conductive work-holding device, either hanging or resting, able to be transported to the oven and back.
> Gloves to transport the hot materials
> A clean rack or surface to cool the materials once out of the oven.
> optional: Wrapping paper or something to transport your piece out of the shop after you've coated it.
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How about an introduction to powder coating for those of us who've never done it, with some tips for doing it without all the funky industrial equipment?
I understand what you're saying about lacking access to the resources of an industrial shop. We're quite lucky to live near a TechShop and get to play with all the toys! The good news is this: powder coating is actually fairly low-tech and you could probably do it at your house with a purchase of less than $150 - $200. If you Google "Powder Coating Gun", you'll see advertisements for inexpensive setups at around $100 - $120 dollars. Eastwood is a good resource (http://www.eastwood.com/hotcoat-powder-coating.html). Order some coating to with it (avg $12/ half pound or a sampler pack of 6 for about $50) and you're almost in business. You could order a special powder curing oven, but your kitchen oven will probably do fine as long as it gets up to 400 degrees. You just need a well ventilated area (preferably outside or in a corner of your workshop) near enough to your oven to transport your powdered pieces to cure. Where do you live? Maybe they'll open a TechShop near you soon. Good luck!
(I listed where I made this piece because we have a deal at the shop about posting.)
Regarding powder coating technique: I edited this posting just a minute ago to include a link to a popular and detailed powder coating Instructable, which you can see here:
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Powder-Coat-metal-art-items/
I felt like that lesson covered powder coating pretty well, so I just figured I'd link to it.
Thanks!
Tony
Thanks for sharing your technique anyway.
I'm guessing a similar technique could be applied to electrostatic coating of other non-conductive materials?
It seems you can powder coat just about anything that you can: a) make the powder "stick" to either electrostatically or just with plain old gravity, and b) safely (no toxic chemicals, etc) bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes.
When I did these pieces I used a wood holding for one of them and because it was flat it held the powder. Then I transferred the whole thing to the oven and when it came out, the wood was pretty well coated as well. There's also hotcoating, so if you bake your piece to curing temperature and quickly coat it while it's hot, the powder may try to stick. You'd then hurry it back into the oven before it changed it's mind. As for durability...who knows?
You could probably powder coat a really interesting variety of materials if you were willing to mess around with the process. The trick is just to be safe with what you're putting into the oven.
sunshiine