My wife and I bought an old Kitchenaid-style mixer last week.

It is in tremendous mechanical condition, but, as you can see, if it's going to sit on my wife's kitchen counter top, it needs some serious cosmetic work.

Therefore, I spent a number of hours (I'm too embarrassed to say how many) disassembling the mixer and then stripping the finsh off the exterior parts.


Because it's going to be subjected to a fair amount of abuse, I want to get the thing powder coated, rather than painted, but I've been quoted $200 for the powder coat job. There ain't no way I'm paying that kind of dough to make a mixer look pretty.

I notice that Eastwood makes a DIY powder coat kit:
http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?i...amp;itemID=458

At least if I spend a few bucks on a kit, I'll have it for potential projects down the road. (For example, my bike frame would love a nice coat of powder.)

Has anyone gone the DIY route on powder coating and, if so, what do you think of the results?

Will the DIY route give you a finish that is as good as a professional job?

After the powder coat is applied, can it be periodically polished, like a paint job?

Thanks.

 

My valve cover was DIY powder coated(not by me, but a friend of mine). I was very happy with the results, and cant imagine a "professional" powder coating would be much better.

as for polishing powder coat i'm not sure what you mean. I mean i havent tried polishing it but you can certainly clean it.

This has inspired me a little bit to maybe get a powder coating kit.

heres the valve cover(disregard the circle and "this")

 

Looks really good.

Your valve cover is not a smooth surface. It's more of a rough surface. Our mixer surface is perfectly smooth, so the powder coat should end up very smooth, too.

As time goes by, both painted surfaces and, I assume, powder coated surfaces will dull. That's why I asked if powder coat can be polished to a high gloss like paint can.

Again, your friend did a really nice job or that cover.

 

yeah I bet it would be pretty smooth. If I had a spare electric oven I would probably get one of those kits, then everything on my car would be powder coated lol.

 

My grandfather has a HotCoat kit and an old electric oven in the garage for powder coating. I powder coated my valve cover gloss black and it turned out great. We also powdercoated the cruise control mount "gunmetal" but it turned out flat gray... eh, win some, lose some.

 

As for polishing.... my valve cover has been powdercoated for 6 months now and still wipes off glossy with glass cleaner

 

Fantastic information, guys.

I'm getting a wee bit excited about this whole powder coating technology. It's been around quite awhile, but I'm really behind the times when it comes to anything that does not impact me directly.

Eastwood has a forum for powder coating and some of the results people have had - even novices - are absolutely remarkable.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I've recently gotten a quote for between $100 and $150, but that's photos only for the company giving the quote. My wife and I will go there tomorrow with the pieces to discuss the details, pick a color, and then get a firm quote. If it's finally $100, I may very well decide to spring for it and only dream about powder coating for awhile.

Thanks again, guys.

 

meh, DIY FTW!!!

 

If I do decide to go the DIY route, of course I'll need a hopefully-small oven for the garage. There are stove/ovens available for free on a local advertising service, so that's no problem. However, using even a free stove means that I need an electrical outlet in the garage for that purpose, and installing a dedicated, permanent line to our garage would be difficult and undoubtedly expensive.

Therefore, could I create a high-powered "extension cord" by using the same wire that one would use to take power from the main electric panel to a permanent stove installation? (Perhaps I could also use the same wire one might use for a welder.)

On one end of the cord I'd install the typical female stove outlet, and on the other I'd install the typical stove male plug.

Whenever I wanted to "do some baking" I'd temporarily slide out the stove in our kitchen, unplug it from the huge outlet and then run the extension cord from there to the stove in the garage. 50 ft should do it. Besides being a bit stiff, the cord should work just fine - theoretically, at least.

Anybody ever hear of an extension cord for a stove?

 

You can't fit this in the oven in the kitchen???