Boy, Do I hate powder coat!

I seriously devalue norton bits that are noted to be "PC" powder coated not...Politically Correct. Sometime devalue to zero!
Try tin knocking or weld & braze and it's quite lousy.
FOR ME ...a bike has to be worth a few thousand less for being PC.

Any experts care to share how to rid these parts of this nasty affliction?

I currently have a project here I was supposed to put together and I think I'd rather send it down the road...

There are various chemicals that will strip it, and you can also sandblast it using coarse media

dynodave said:

Any experts care to share how to rid these parts of this nasty affliction?

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grandpaul said:

There are various chemicals that will strip it
SNIP

Click to expand...

Soap and water?
methylene chloride (people have died from these vapors, that's why it is being outlawed i.e. cook the brain and/or heart attack),
Methyl Ethyl Ketone?
certainly not alcohol or acetone
I would hate to spend an hour($75) or more in front of the sand blast cabinet to clean off a freekin air cleaner backing plate PLUS compressor $ electricity/noise + $ sand/grit.

How much to blast a frame? swing arm? engine cradle? Huge tank, 100 gallons of chemical? Boil it in caustic?
I hate powder coat!

heat?

Roger that. I thought PC was the second coming. That was 20 years ago. Good paint if steel, vapor honed or polished if aluminum.

I've had luck freezing small parts to remove the coating, a triumph rear brake plate comes to mind, left it in the freezer overnight and was able to chip it away quite easily. Obviously a piss poor coating job in the first place, but worked out to my benefit!

I take it back to the powder coater after doing any mods needed, the price is the same if painted or powder coated.

Aircraft paint remover, wait till it curls up, then scrape it off.

Going back some years nylon coating was popular
My mate had it done on his commando, god awful finish in my opinion
I have seen a crack in a frame once that was hidden by this finish
Also rust can creep under it

elefantrider said:

Aircraft paint remover, wait till it curls up, then scrape it off.

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So is your APR methylene chloride based? or some other chemical?
Slopping this stuff on a frame then scraping the goo off would probably take at least and 8 hour day?
I'm familiar with Methylene Chloride as it is in the carb cleaner bucket I use. How ever if you use it enough it gets in your blood and eventually you can "taste" it as the blood goes through your tongue. Use in a vented area!
How many folks would like a rough black beauty sand blasted frame to paint. Look like crap? IMO.
Some dumb woman had some dumb kid (illiterate?) who got a gallon of MC based stripper and unleashed it in his small closed room. Guess what, he died, so MC is removed from over 3/4 of the strippers and brush cleaners sold in Mass. If you read the label it says do not use it if you have any heart problems...
As my personal example is a husqvarna yard cart I bought a few years ago 2010?? in powder coat orange. Within 3-4 seasons this started pealing off in sheets. At the same time the tractor I pulled it around the yard with was my 1968 simplicity Broomoor orange paint looked to hold up much better after 40+ years.
My 72 combat black acrylic enamel painted in 87 still looks pretty good today. Black paint sounds better all the time.

So you have one air cleaner backing plate that was power coated and that means that all powder coated parts are the devil's work?

If it had been painted how would you have taken the paint off?

Dave,
POR 15 make a stripper that is very good.
Don’t know what is in it but it works
Not sure I’d like to do a whole frame with it. Would take a while.
My opinion only ,,, I wouldn’t use powder coat on a frame.

Graeme

If my powder coated frame ever needed stripped I'd just take it to the powder coater to get blasted and recoated. It's not rocket surgery.

No it's not hard.
But every time a frame is course blasted to get rid of powder coating it gets thinner.
There is powder coating that is professional and powder coating that should be only used on garden furniture.

Graeme

dynodave said:

So is your APR methylene chloride based? or some other chemical?

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Yes, I think they all contain it. I used Rusto-leum. They keep it in the locked cabinet at Wally World.

There is a cem on the internet called Benco B17, but I haven't tried it my self so cannot comment.

Googling "POR 15 Safety Data Sheet" gets you the ingredients and danger. I've only copied part of the SDS below.

Methylene Chloride is Dichloromethane

Looks to be close to the formulation for paint stripper I worked on in the 1980s as a Development Chemist. Missing
the magic Staytite ingredient, but I'd have to kill you if I told you what that was ! ..... Take care


Safety Data Sheet according to 1907/2006/EC (REACH), 1272/2008/EC (CLP), and GHS
Trade Name: POR-15 Strip Gel
3.2 Mixtures
Description: Mixture of substances listed below with nonhazardous additions. Dangerous components:


CAS: 75-09-2
EINECS: 200-838-9
Index number: 602-004-00-3


Dichloromethane
Xn R40; Carc. Cat. 3; Carc. 2, H351

78-88%


CAS: 67-56-1
EINECS: 200-659-6
Index number: 603-001-00-X


Methanol

T R23/24/25-39/23/24/25; F R11; Flam. Liq. 2, H225; Acute Tox. 3, H301; Acute Tox. 3, H311; Acute Tox. 3, H331; STOT SE 1, H370

7-10%


CAS: 108-88-3
EINECS: 203-625-9
Index number: 601-021-00-3


Toluene

Xn R48/20-63-65; Xi R38; F R11; R67; Repr. Cat. 3; Flam. Liq. 2,

H225; Repr. 2, H361d; STOT RE 2, H373; Asp. Tox. 1, H304; Skin Irrit. 2, H315; STOT SE 3, H336

1-5%


CAS: 1336-21-6
EINECS: 215-647-6
Index number: 007-001-01-2

Ammonia

Xi R41; N R50; Eye Dam. 1, H318; Aquatic Acute 1, H400

1-5%

Staytite said:

Googling "POR 15 Safety Data Sheet" gets you the ingredients and danger. I've only copied part of the SDS below.

Methylene Chloride is Dichloromethane

Looks to be close to the formulation for paint stripper I worked on in the 1980s as a Development Chemist. Missing
the magic Staytite ingredient, but I'd have to kill you if I told you what that was ! ..... Take care


Safety Data Sheet according to 1907/2006/EC (REACH), 1272/2008/EC (CLP), and GHS
Trade Name: POR-15 Strip Gel
3.2 Mixtures
Description: Mixture of substances listed below with nonhazardous additions. Dangerous components:


CAS: 75-09-2
EINECS: 200-838-9
Index number: 602-004-00-3


Dichloromethane
Xn R40; Carc. Cat. 3; Carc. 2, H351

78-88%


CAS: 67-56-1
EINECS: 200-659-6
Index number: 603-001-00-X


Methanol

T R23/24/25-39/23/24/25; F R11; Flam. Liq. 2, H225; Acute Tox. 3, H301; Acute Tox. 3, H311; Acute Tox. 3, H331; STOT SE 1, H370

7-10%


CAS: 108-88-3
EINECS: 203-625-9
Index number: 601-021-00-3


Toluene

Xn R48/20-63-65; Xi R38; F R11; R67; Repr. Cat. 3; Flam. Liq. 2,

H225; Repr. 2, H361d; STOT RE 2, H373; Asp. Tox. 1, H304; Skin Irrit. 2, H315; STOT SE 3, H336

1-5%


CAS: 1336-21-6
EINECS: 215-647-6
Index number: 007-001-01-2

Ammonia

Xi R41; N R50; Eye Dam. 1, H318; Aquatic Acute 1, H400

1-5%

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Thank you for those info, but is MEK also such hazardous to work with , I need to strip a badly coated fastback tank ??

In the good old days of the late 1970s & 1980s we used to slosh solvents about with gay abandon and luckily I live to tell the tales.
Probably more due to luck than judgement. Not to be recommended. Treat all solvents with care. Read the Safety Data Sheets
that are easily available on reputable web sites. All solvents are hazardous to a greater or lessor extent. I would be a bit worried
about the effect of MEK on the old fibreglass (?) of a fastback tank reducing it's ability to hold modern petrol.


Some bits from the MDS on Fischer scientic web site (www.fischersci.com):

SAFETY DATA SHEET
Revision Date 17-Jan-2018 Revision Number 6

1. Identification

Methyl Ethyl Ketone

M209-1, M209-20, M209-200, M209-4, M209-500, M209S-4, M209FB-19, M209FB-50, M209FB-115, M209FB-200, M209RB-115, M209RS-19, M209RS-28, M209RS-50, M209RS-200, M209SS-28, M209SS-50, M209SS-115, M209SS-200

78-93-3
2-Butanone; MEK; Ethyl methyl ketone

Laboratory chemicals.
Not for food, drug, pesticide or biocidal product use
Flammable liquids
Serious Eye Damage/Eye Irritation
Specific target organ toxicity (single exposure)
Target Organs -
Central nervous system (CNS).
Specific target organ toxicity - (repeated exposure)
Target Organs - Kidney, Liver.


Suggest you read before use and take appropiate care.

Does anybody have experience of using MEK on fibreglass?

Staytite said:

I would be a bit worried
about the effect of MEK on the old fibreglass (?) of a fastback tank reducing it's ability to hold modern petrol.

Click to expand...

An original fastback tanks made with original general purpose polyester resin works fine with real 100% gasoline/petrol.
GP resin WILL be severly chemically damaged by ethanol. In this country todays fuel is catagorized as "spark ignition fuel" by the Govt.
No other chemicals will change this...ethanol IS the killer chemical of GP resin: https://www.accessnorton.com/NortonCommando/new-resin-fastback-fuel-tanks-from-rgm.30279/

The original posting was about removing powder coat (not resin) on any norton sheet metal not fiberglass tanks.
I still have not changed my mind:

Boy, Do I hate powder coat!