Powder Coat vs. Cerakote | Which Is Better?

so there's a lot of questions out there about powder-coated seracote which is better how to apply it and where to use it so I'm gonna take two parts prepare them identically bring you through the process of each type of coating and then do a redneck durability test using real-world situations there are some similarities powder coat and seracote are applied in much the same way but as you can imagine powder coat comes in a powder form and seracote is in a liquid form and the end result generally powder coating is three to four times thicker than seracote and that's a big advantage of seracote there is not as much prep work involved since most the time you don't need to worry about masking out threads or mating surfaces where you can't have a thick finish such as the case with powder coat but it's the end result that really matters and that's what we're gonna test out today all right I've got to the same exact clutch levers here and they've got these plastic plugs on the end I'll need to pull them out since they'll get destroyed in the oven so stay if I were to put these levers use with powder coating I would want to mask off the surface and plug the hole too since the powder build up would be too thick for the lever to be usable however a seracote I would not need to do any masking the first step with the prep process is to clean these lovers up with degreaser follow it up with an acetone soak for 30 minutes after the 30-minute soak comes an abrasive blast with aluminum oxide media now I'm gonna blow the levers off with the air compressor and from start to finish I'll be wearing a set of powder free gloves whenever I'm handling the parts so why soak the parts in acetone before sandblasting and not the other way around well I wondered the same thing but that is the exact process recommended by seracote and many powder coat and seracote suppliers - from what I gather sandblasting is the best way of cleaning apart provided you have a clean abrasive and soaking apart acetone does leave a residue so if that in mind I guess it does make some sense the next step in the process is to hang the parts from the rack that way I can run them through the oven for a preheat at 300 degrees for a full hour this will ensure there's no residue or anything left behind just pull the levers out of the oven and I'm gonna spray one out with powder first allright the powder coating gun I'll be using is a hot coat sold by Eastwood so it's pretty simple setup it just plugs into power and then you have compressed air right here the ground clips onto the part and then the powder container just screws on right here the powder I'll be using is a hot coat it looks like it's a gloss black show you what this powder looks like dump out a little bit of it here so it's pretty much like any powder you would see think of it as paint without the solvent I've got the gun plugged in and all ready to go got power err just need to clip the ground of the part and I'll be ready to spray let me give you a little demonstration of exactly what this looks like so you can see just powder flowing out of the end of the gun here so I'm gonna have the clip grounded to the part the part will actually be electrically charged and the part in the powder will be attracted to each other so the powder will just stick right to the surface and of course with any powder or painting process you want to wear a respirator after the powder has been sprayed out it's gonna have a really flat or a chalky finish to it now I'm gonna place the part in the oven at 400 degrees and check it every 5 minutes to see if that powder has flowed out it's been a couple minutes I'm gonna take a look at the lever yep looks like that powder flowed out so now I'm gonna let it cure for another 20 minutes at the same temperature the 20 minutes is up I'm just gonna pull the lever out of the oven and let it cool down it is definitely glassy all right looks pretty good though now what's on the sarahx coating the other lever the process for a spray and seracote is pretty similar except I'll be using a liquid and a different style gun this lever I'll be going with the tungsten color for you guys that saw my last couple seracote in videos I was using an airbrush but that thing ended up being hung crap so I picked up this touch-up gun I've been playing around with it for a little bit and it seems to work a lot better let's put it to the test so to mix up the seracote i've got the color and a catalyst and i'll be mixing these at a 12 to 1 ratio in the cylinder here another thing that's different this time around is I'll be using these little eye droppers and I should help get the correct ratio from color to seracote guns all filled up a seracote plugged in made a few test runs and now it is time to spray out the lever man I'm not gonna spread out the seracote so much better really glad I bought it so I've had the lever sitting for a solid 15 minutes after spraying now it is time to toss it in the oven and cure it at 300 degrees for an hour the lever is all done with the curing process and as soon as this thing cools off I'll check back in with you guys alright both levers are all finished up and as far as the finish goes the powder coat was a high gloss so of course it's gonna be smooth and the seracote is a little bit rougher it's got some texture to it so most seracote comes in a semi gloss or satin finish so the thing with powder coat is there's definitely a lot more options out there for color and finish and with seracote most your options are going to be in a black gray white brown kind of range they don't really have much for the red blue orange yellow kind of thing alright let's see how these finishes hold up to some abuse one more thing it usually takes about 4 or 5 days for the coating to fully cure so I'm gonna give it a few days before I start hammering on them I'll touch base with you guys then while we're waiting on that powder coat and seracote to fully cure I've got some exciting news for you guys the new hats and shirts I've been working on are now available over on primum XCOM absolutely in love with this hat fits really good got mesh on the back snapback great all-around hat and the shirt is top-notch as well fits awesome super soft material you will not be disappointed one bit so head over to prime MX comm to grab yours they will not be around for long trust me so it's a few days later and I'm sure that coding is plenty cared by now I'm gonna do some durability testing on these pieces so the first thing we did encounter with a part like this is reduced and rocks hitting the part so I'm gonna test that out right now there really is no perfect way to accurately and equally test this and like I said this is gonna be a little bit redneck so I've got a rock in the vise and I'm going to tap each lever against the rock and see how the coatings hold I'm gonna start with the powder-coated lever first I whacked the lever pretty hard against the rock a few times and as you can see we've got a few chips in the powder cutting not too bad though on to the Sarah co2 the lever now I gave this one a couple saw whacks and ended up with a few chips but it isn't quite as bad as the powder coating I would say the seracote held that better in this situation another situation that could happen with a lever is you tip the bike over and you scrape up the end of the lever on a rock or something so I'm gonna test that out right now if I just scraping each lever against the rock obviously that rock is pretty dang rough it's like five grit sandpaper but it wore through the powder coating fairly quick now let's see how the sarah coded lever handles it I would say they're pretty dang equal on that one I tried to rub each lever on the rock for about the same amount of time alright this test is gonna be somewhat similar to the last one except I'll be using a scotch brite wheel on the buffer I'm just gonna hold each lever to the wheel for two seconds and see how quickly the finish wears through I kind of figured this to be the outcome since powdercoat is generally three to four times thicker than seracote next up is sandblasting and again I'm gonna blast on each part for two seconds now it was kind of tough to give an equal blasts to each lever but I would give the slight edge to powder coating simply because it's a thicker finish the next one is pretty simple just gonna scrape a razor blade against each lever now this one was kind of interesting as you can see the powder coat went all the way through to the aluminum but the seracote still has some coating left over the final test is kind of pointless unless you want to see how well your bike would hold up in a fire but I figured it'd be fun to try out regardless actually just one more test looks like powder Cody held up better on that one and I somehow didn't kill myself in the process that was kind of stupid now if I were to do a legit test I would also include corrosion testing and sunlight exposure but those are just two involved overall I would say the two finishes are pretty equivalent for durability many times stronger than spray paint but neither would hold a candle to hard anodizing so on the debate of powder coat versus air coat it really boils down to what kind of part your coating and what color you're gonna go with with powder coating you have so many options for color and types of finish anything from flat to high-gloss textured translucent you name it powder coating has it seracote not quite as much now for the type of part you're gonna be coating this is what's gonna make the biggest difference here if you have a part that has a thickness tolerance or a lot of areas that need masking off I personally would go with seracote in most cases for example the triple clamps here are Cera coated and I didn't need to mask anything off if I would have powder coated them there would have been a lip here and I don't think that would have looked very good and then coming over to the front wheel here the hub is powder coated with a translucent red so there is a lip right here where the brake rotor sits I don't think it looks very clean and I would have avoided that with seracote but then again I wouldn't have been able to achieve this type of finish with Sarah coating you guys are probably confused as heck right now so personally I would go seracote in most cases simply because it's a cleaner look and there's less prep work involved but then again it is more expensive than powder coat in the scenario where I want to use a translucent or a candy type finish then I would go with powder coating and as far as coating engine covers and frames anything you put on there is gonna wear through unless it is hard analyzing which is why I've gone away from coating my engine covers especially on a two-stroke your shifting so much it's gonna wear through pretty quickly alright so you want to have some powder coating or Sarah coating done but where do you go with powder coating it's so popular it's pretty easy to find a good shop locally but with sarah code it's a little more difficult luckily I know what got it super good actually within the motorcycle industry trick engineering is the place to go I'll link their website down below I'm gonna wrap up the video right here if you enjoyed it give it a big thumbs up and if you're new to the videos don't be afraid to hit that subscribe button and one more thing head over to prime em XCOM to grab your hat and t-shirt while they're still available thank you for watching you

Channel: Cameron Niemela

Views: 405,758

Keywords: Powder Coat vs. Cerakote | Which Is Better, Powder Coat vs Cerakote, Powdercoating, Powdercoat, Cerakoting, CR250, Dirt Bike, Motorcycle, Dirt Bike Build, Fixing Motorcycle, Cameron Niemela, Niemela, CR250 Project, How To, Cerakote, Cerakote At Home, Cerakote Dirt Bike Parts, How To Cerakote, DIY Cerakote, Cerakoting Dirt Bike Parts, Ceramic Coating, Powder Coating, Powdercoating At Home, How To Powder Coat, DIY Powdercoat, Powder Coat At Home, Powder Coat Dirt Bike Parts

Id: WVQfiVE7qqE

Length: 14min 35sec (875 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 15 2018