MadModder
The Shop => Finishing => Topic started by: j45on on April 26, 2011, 06:08:00 PM
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I have not done this personally but I thought it might interest you guys , he explains his method for applying powder coat using a paint spray gun instead of powder coating equipment
http://pinball-mods.com/blogs/?p=70
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When I was an engine engineer in Detroit I remember watching car bodies being powder coated. This was so long ago (1965) that humans rather than robots were spraying the paint. But, the key thing for car companies was that there was very little overspray with electrostatic guns. Almost all the paint ended up on the car panels. For the home shop, getting an even coat is perhaps the electrostatic guns only important use for me - don't care about the overspray that much.
Car companies made paint jobs thinner by a couple of thousandths and thinned up the sheet metal every year for many years to save weight and thereby increase fuel efficiency.
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So when did the Americans start using dead mild steel body panels?
Bry
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My participation was 1975-1981. Car panels were produced at the Ford Rouge (Dearborn, Michigan) plant in ASTM 1020 steel from the basic oxygen furnaces on site. The panels were reduced in thickness by about .002 inch for every year that I was there in order to reduce weight and thereby increase fuel economy. The panels were reduced in thickness until they would just bounce back if leaned upon.
Plate glass was produced by melting in a lake of molten tin and pulled off in sheets without the need for further polishing (truly amazing to watch - I still have a handful of tin from the operation). Even this glass was reduced in thickness in order to improve fuel economy.
Dick
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Arr ic interesting.
I've been around two ford plants in the UK one was a foundry at Leamington spa now supposedly closed and the other was at Southampton/ Soton the Transit van factory.
The glass you're referring to sounds like what the Brits glass folk call FLOAT.
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We call it float as well. Can always tell old (pre-float) glass by seeing the ripples.
Think the situation in the UK is about the same - local steel and glass making has almost totally died - bought out and replaced by Asian products. Many people out of work.
-Dick