Vic you do nice work. $6k for a pan powdercoat seems excessive to me, particularly given what you got. That shop ought to refund it all, imho.
Hello everyone,
Another update on my build, I’ve got the front suspension and brakes put together.
I’ll be starting on the rear tomorrow.
I decided to do some DIY powder coating myself, I powder coated the drum spindles and the rear plates for attaching the the rear suspension arms. This involved buying a sandblasting cabinet and a new compressor along with a toaster oven and a powder coating gun.
the results are quite good though.
That’s it for now, I’ll keep you posted 👍
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A couple of years ago, my wife went through one of those weeks where she corralled everything that we hadn't used in a while and tossed phased it out. One of those was an analog Cuisenart convection toaster oven which got rescued and now is hidden away out in the shop cabinets.
I don't fully trust the temp knob on it, so I drilled a hole that I can pass a grilling thermometer temp probe through and that works great. Same as you, it's been handy for powder coating small parts. I get to use my daughter-in-laws sandblast booth when I need one - She creates a lot of custom stuff sold on Etsy.
He who dies with the most tools, wins...
Nice Mendeola stuff for sure.
DOing powder coating is something that I thought about doing at times and even media blasting needs a good water separator and the proper compressor. Plus you know the sand gets everywhere 
@Gordon Nichols posted:A couple of years ago, my wife went through one of those weeks where she corralled everything that we hadn't used in a while and tossed phased it out. One of those was an analog Cuisenart convection toaster oven which got rescued and now is hidden away out in the shop cabinets.
I don't fully trust the temp knob on it, so I drilled a hole that I can pass a grilling thermometer temp probe through and that works great. Same as you, it's been handy for powder coating small parts. I get to use my daughter-in-laws sandblast booth when I need one - She creates a lot of custom stuff sold on Etsy.
He who dies with the most tools, wins...
😂 I’m loving this! Thecway things are going I won’t be able to move in my garage with all the tools I’m having to buy for this build. I’m already eyeing up the next one - brake pipe flaring tool. I can’t believe the cost of these things!
I must admit, I wish I had bought the sandblaster and larger compressor at the start of my build, I spent hrs scrubbing to no effect. 2 minutes in the sand blaster and it’s done.
The powder coating was easier than I thought, same as, I should have got on it from the start.
@IaM-Ray posted:Nice Mendeola stuff for sure.
DOing powder coating is something that I thought about doing at times and even media blasting needs a good water separator and the proper compressor. Plus you know the sand gets everywhere
You are right about the compressor, I thought I could get away with using my old one, no good, hence the new one. A bonus was I sold my old compressor for the same price I paid for it, sometimes you win (rarely though). I fitted a water seperator to the cabinet and one to the compressor, seems to be working out okay so far.
I made some modifications to the cabinet, there are tons on line, one was the cyclone vacuum thingy on the left of the cabinet, it seems to keep dust at bay and most of the sand in the cabinet, cost about 20 bucks to make.
Well, great stuff, I just realized your in the Wild Rose Country, I have been thinking of moving there at times … You know… "never fear Smith is here.” and doing a good job it seems.
If you make friends with a local semi-custom exhaust shop you can usually get stuff like flaring done cheaply or for nothing (bring photos of your car - That always helps) and then you won't need to buy tools you'll only use once, or once every twenty years.
I still have the small-ish, 60 gallon air compressor that I had when building my car. I had to rebuild it after using air tools for too long on it. My son remembered that and got something much larger - a huge 2-stage 120 gal. compressor from something like Costco when he was building his shop and located it in a shed behind the garage to keep the noise manageable. You can never have too much CFM.
When I was building my Speedster, back in the 1990's, I was managing an engineering design group at a computer company. Part of that team built the mechanical prototypes of our stuff, so I made sure they had just about every tool known to man in their shop, plus a lot of space in what was once a parking garage. We all got good at creative justifications forwarded to the Finance types. Because the Proto guys had all those tools to work with, there was never any problem with bringing in things to get sand blasted, machined, chromate or powder coated, anodized or welded and then spirited back home.
Since I retired, I have to shop around for some of that stuff, but can still get things done on the cheap through a network of friends. That has helped me refrain from over-buying tools that wouldn't fit in my shop, anyway. Plus, I get to visit friends I might not see as often, just to check up on them.
A bicycling friend is a production Engineer at Astra Pharmaceutical and he dropped by a few weeks ago looking for help making a specialized tool he needed for some part of his production line. It maybe took an hour or so to cobble one together and he said my shop was way better than what he had at work.
He who dies with the most tools...
@Vic7672 posted:I’m already eyeing up the next one - brake pipe flaring tool. I can’t believe the cost of these things!
kit that includes tubing cutter, edge deburr & can do double and 'bubble' flare
https://www.harborfreight.com/...-tool-kit-58147.html
I got this to do the 1 brake line shortening to the rear & job done. I had a tube cutter and a countersink bit for the deburr.. and didn't see the need for bubble flare since I likely will not be doing another.