My old bro on Long Island, New York asked my thoughts on finish for the bare frame of his '72 LeMans; Powder Coat or Paint it Black? Any help and experience will halp. Thanks, Hotrod Charlie
My bro's original message: "I am hearing that if it chips and moisture gets under the finish it will rust & peel since its raw metal under the powder coating."
Here's what I found.... Powder coating is fine if you are all done with any type of fab work on the frame. If ya gotta take it off, putting it back dont work. I painted mine so I can always touch up when I relize I screwed up and gotta do something else I forgot.
I think it will depend a lot on the skill of the powder coat shop. Try to get recommendations from people in your area.
This has been my experience, once moisture gets under the plastic(powder coating) it will bubble and rust. Depending on budget you can use oil based paint like valspar's implement enamel with hardener all the way to single stage urethane like Imron. Either one of these paints can be touched up in the future and will hold thier color. Just my .02
I'm painting my latest project. I've had powder painters all over the place with quality and they aren't consistent from one time to the next. Makes me nervous cause if the powder looks bad you got a problem.
We have powdercoated Sema show cars to over 1000 race cars the past 10 years. It is all about prep work and a good 3 stage phosphate wash with a powder epoxy primer with a topcoat no liquid paint can match the performance of powder. Also the is touch up paint available
I painted the bumpers on my truck with POR-15 http://www.por15.com/ a guy i work with swears by it. Its been great so far. My neighbor did his 32 frame with it aswell. Just be careful once it gets on it does not come off.
x2.....I've not had good luck with powdercoat, and it's almost impossible to remove when it goes to ****......I'll stick to paint.
When I did the frame on my '62 Vette, we blasted the frame, primed and then epoxy painted it. Very durable, and if you chip or nick the frame big deal, touch it up. Ten years later still shines. Good luck !
I'd paint it... you scratch powder coat your pretty much screwed... you can touch up scratched or chipped paint.. The guy who runs a welding shop down the way from us built a '70 Chevelle (pretty bad *** car) and had all the suspension peices, and most everything else aside from the body powdercoated.. It looks good but the peices that got scratched during ***embly are still scratched... And just like someone mentioned if you want to change something on the frame later on you pretty much need to have it recoated...
Powder coating is costly and if the car is not going to be driven year round is overkill, go with paint and repair as needed.
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