Powder coating with RAL 7030 Stone Gray (Industrial M Gray)

[XMIT]

This is an interest check for powder coating services. The interest check expires on Thursday, August 13, 2015 at midnight Texas time (UTC -0600 at the moment).

I'm in the process of restoring my F107 keyboard and decided that I would like to have it powder coated. The goal is to match the gray on my Industrial M. Some other folks have recommended RAL 7030 for this application.

The shop that I am using does not have this color in stock so I had to order it at my expense ($40). Plus, even though stripping and powder coating the shell of an F107 is about $40 of work, the shop minimum is $75. Their current lead time is three weeks.

Now I don't mind supporting local business and am prepared to eat this cost myself. However, the shop manger offered to do at least one extra keyboard frame at little to no additional charge.

The shop has many colors in stock but RAL 7030 is not one of them. So, if you want to powder coat something else (say a base plate) they may be able to do this as well.

So this is what I propose:
- mail your item to be powder coated to me. This could be an F62, F77, F107, or really anything that will take a powder coat.
- I will charge you your portion of the actual expenses. So, two ways, we're looking at about $57.50 a person. Three ways or more, probably like $45 a person since costs could increase.

I'm stealing one of rindorbrot's photos here to show what a powder coated Kishsaver in RAL 7030 Stone Gray looks like. See: http://deskthority.net/photos-f62/kishs ... ml#p148314 .

If this interest check fails: I will probably have some spare RAL 7030 powder coat that I will sell on the Classifieds if anyone is interested.

Thanks for reading!

IMG_20140218_191948.jpg (232.04 KiB) Viewed 5729 times

[Touch_It]

I really want to get my 107 powder-coated. let me think about it. If I do but want a different color besides industrial gray is there an additional cost?

[XMIT]

I really want to get my 107 powder-coated. let me think about it. If I do but want a different color besides industrial gray is there an additional cost?

I don't think so, no. I can help you double check to see exactly which colors they have in stock. So long as you either go with RAL 7030 or go with one of their no-upcharge stock colors we can just split the powder coating evenly. If you decide to go with a different custom color we can work out some other way of splitting the costs.

[pyrelink]

I would love to get my F107 powder coated for a reasonable cost. However, is this paint shop handling the paint stripping/sandblasting? Mine is currently about 75% stripped of paint.

[andrewjoy]

Gah i wish you still had my 107 now would cost too much to send to the US

[XMIT]

I would love to get my F107 powder coated for a reasonable cost. However, is this paint shop handling the paint stripping/sandblasting? Mine is currently about 75% stripped of paint.

Yes. The shop advised me that there are two ways of removing powder coat: heat, and chemical strippers. They plan to use heat to remove the existing powder coat.

To prepare mine for painting I removed the rubber feet, as well as the two thin metal sleeves used for securing the lift bar in place. I also removed the label (use a hair dryer and peel carefully using tweezers).

[pyrelink]

In that case I would like to register my interest for this.

[XMIT]

Okay, great. I'll shoot you a PM.

[Muirium]

You'll be able to tell American and European Kishies apart soon enough at this rate. The American ones are grey, like squirrels!

[XMIT]

Gah i wish you still had my 107 now would cost too much to send to the US

Yeah

Sorry, I have a long list of projects and it took me a while to get to this one. If your F107 were still here I would have gladly gotten it painted for you before sending it over.

Of course if someone else wants an F107 they can work with me and orihalcon. He'll send me the board, I can have it painted and send it your way.

A neat thing about powder coat is there is no drying time. Once it cures, that's it. No outgassing, no tackiness.

[Parak]

I'd actually be interested too, as local shop prices here are $arm. I'd be even more interested if they can clean and paint F plates without harming the stabilizers

[XMIT]

I'd actually be interested too, as local shop prices here are $arm. I'd be even more interested if they can clean and paint F plates without harming the stabilizers

I don't see how this is doable. The paint removal and curing process involves putting everything in a 400 F / 205 C oven for some time. Even if the stabilizers are PBT I think they would be damaged by this process. Perhaps the solution is to use barrel stabilized keys and a wcass style washer arrangement for the space bar stabilizer.

I'm not counting on this shop to do anything other than removing old paint and putting on new paint. The guy at the front desk though the Industrial M I brought along for color matching was really neat but didn't know anything about them. We did confirm that RAL 7030 was a better match than whatever their stock shop gray was. Also RAL 7030 is just a color code: there are multiple suppliers of it.

But, sure, if you want to send me something, shoot me a PM. This will increase costs and possibly result in more paint needing to be ordered if we do many more. I don't think this will drop much below $45 each.

[Touch_It]

Hopefully some people can/have taken advantage of this. The shipping both ways I decided was a deal breaker for me. I'm sure I will regret it at some point though .

[XMIT]

Oh bummer. I thought you could get it shipped to/from here for like $30 round trip. Maybe next time.

[Touch_It]

Yeah, I could. That bumps the price up to $75.00 give or take. While realistically this isn't a bad price by any means. I didn't feel that I could justify the cost to myself at the time.

[XMIT]

Fair enough.

Still no update from the powder coating dude. I'll give him a call next week, and/or when pyrelink's shell arrives. The lead time is long but I think the actual work is pretty quick.

[XMIT]

The powder coating folks called yesterday and asked me to bring the keyboard in. If you want something powder coated, it needs to be in my hands by Wednesday (tomorrow!) evening.

[XMIT]

It is done! I've posted one photo here:

http://deskthority.net/photos-f62/ibm-4 ... 11432.html

I bought 2 lbs of paint and the front and back of these keyboards used 1.5 lbs of paint. I have enough paint for at least 6 more of these (the painter said "a bunch more", his exact words). The paint expires in a year.

I may post more photos, and may organize another group buy.