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