(Topic ID: 96719)

Anyone Powdercoat an apron?

By Squeakman

9 years ago



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#1 9 years ago

I was going to wait for the repro arpon for Funhouse to come out, but have decided to go ahead and refinish my old one. Anyone powdercoat an apron? I am weary of powdercoating and then sticking stickers. Looks like the originals had art screen printed on them. Do the stickers look good or should I wait it out for the repro?

#2 9 years ago

Nothing looks as good as real silkscreened art, but decals can look OK from a distance.

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1 month later
#3 9 years ago
Quoted from Squeakman:

I was going to wait for the repro arpon for Funhouse to come out, but have decided to go ahead and refinish my old one. Anyone powdercoat an apron? I am weary of powdercoating and then sticking stickers. Looks like the originals had art screen printed on them. Do the stickers look good or should I wait it out for the repro?

If you can wait a while Merf's Funhouse will be remaking Funhouse aprons and shooter gauges fully silkscreened and powdercoated.

5 years later
#4 3 years ago

Recently had to deal with this same question for my TOTAN apron. Original TOTAN aprons were yellow anodized steel, which looked amazing straight from the factory, but after 25 years of handprints and finger stains, they simply oxidize into black clouds and become eye-sores. (OSHA doesn't even allow that finish to be done in the USA any longer due to the hazardous chemicals involved). So, I picked up a old TOTAN apron with lots of scratches, missing paint, some rust and black-cloud oxidized metal, and got a quote from a local powdercoating house to strip it down and powder coat it in GOLD. The lowest I found was $150 pickup locally (The online guys wanted more $).

I decided instead to give it a whirl myself. So I used a razor blade to scrape off all remaining painted detail, used my sand-blaster to blast the whole thing including the underside, cleaned the whole thing with water and then again with acetone and let dry for a few minutes. I had picked-up a can of self-etching primer ($5 at Lowes), and gave top and bottom a good couple of coats and put it aside for a couple of days. After that, I used a can of rich gold (same color as the GENIE LAMP) Krylon Fusion spray (another $5 at lowes) and gave the apron top and bottom two full coats, separated by about 10 minutes or so. I let the second coat dry for just an hour, and then (very important) I put the whole thing in my cold kitchen oven and set it on 200 for another 90 minutes or so. After the hour&1/2, I turned OFF the oven and just let it cool inside the slowing cooling down oven overnight (you will have a very noticeable smell in the house).

Results: AMAZING!!!!! The finish on the apron is deep, rich and feels very solid to the touch. Hard to distinguish from a powdercoated apron. The perfect semi-gloss (not obnoxious gloss).

Final thought: Putting the printed graphics back on. I also was lucky enough to find contour cut graphics that will be applied once I receive them. (This is NOT the full coverage inkjet type decals you find in several places, but just the graphics that need to be carefully applied individually.) The whole thing was possible because I found these contour cut graphics. Without those, the apron would be missing the original factory printed details.

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