If Powder Coating Is Sooo Good........

I toured the Spirit Lake Ia plant where Victory & Indian are being assembled. Frames & other small parts are powder coated. I asked the tour guide why tanks & fenders were not p coated. He said modern paint gives a deeper gloss and just plain looks better. I was surprised to see painted tanks being hand buffed before being installed on the cycles. Greg

 

I don't think the change from bright yellow to buff color had anything to do with going to powder coat.

The bright yellow pigments went from chrome and lead based pigment to non-lead, non-chrome. When that happened, automotive grade non fading yellow pigments doubled and tripled in price. It also takes about 2-4 times as much of that expensive pigment to even approach the hiding of the original lead/chrome based paint. Imagine what that combination did to pricing. Many OEM companies changed their standard color combinations in response, including Cat.

 

Bob of Redlinetoys That does make sense. This is about when the big switch was from lead based paints everywhere. I do know that Cat switched to paint booths with electrically charged paint systems and there was little or no overspray. However I was driving a truck for them by then and wasn't around the assembly and manufacturing areas anymore.
I also notice more things are now powdercoated and seem durable. However many are smaller items that are made to be thrown away soon. As are lawn chairs and yard tools.

 

I have been following this post and realized that there is a lot of misinformation that is being assumed as correct. now to be honest on my part here, I have not used any of the (imo) lesser quality coating guns or kitchen oven setups that some people are using, these may be fine for them however when referring to a crummy powder coat job, the reason for coating failure needs to be determined, more likely then not, it is a prep issuse, curing problem or a equipment problem . Spending a 100 bucks
and using moms oven is not comparing apples to apples. there is a lot of good info from some doers here, ie experienced coaters, but there is a
bunch of BS info that is simply incorrect. I wouldn't go buy a case of
spray paint to paint my car and then when it failed, blame it on the product.