Powder Coated Rails

[yamagone]

Has anyone powder coated thier rear skid rails and if so how did they hold up. I plan on blacking out my 09' xtx front and rear. Thanks.

 

[APEX 06]

If you are after black truck bed coating works in a spray can and cost a lot less. Did it to my 06 and it held up well.

 

[fxnytrortxkid]

Does the extra thickness of powder or other options Mske slides hard to get on an off or do u tape that area off?

 

[pro116]

I have powder coated a few rails.They held up great and slides actually slid on and off really easy compared to the bear aluminum.

 

[OVR4D]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the risk you run when powder coating structural aluminum parts. I'll probably get blasted here for saying so, but IMO you should not powder coat a structural aluminum part because the heat used to bake the paint on can change the temper of the material, making the piece being painted more susceptible to failure. I'd recommend a paint method that doesn't involve the high temps of powder coating for structural aluminum pieces. Non-structural pieces are okay to paint where safety is a non issue.

 

[yamagone]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the risk you run when powder coating structural aluminum parts. I'll probably get blasted here for saying so, but IMO you should not powder coat a structural aluminum part because the heat used to bake the paint on can change the temper of the material, making the piece being painted more susceptible to failure. I'd recommend a paint method that doesn't involve the high temps of powder coating for structural aluminum pieces. Non-structural pieces are okay to paint where safety is a non issue.

There should be no risk as far a heat stress. PC process uses 350 degree heat for about 10-15 minutes. We powder coat our race kart chassis, street rod and motor cycle parts and have for years. The only risk I've ever ran into as far as aluminum is pitting on parts that have been subjected to raod salt and other harsh contaminents. I did a set of ski shoes for my sones MX-z last year and they came back pitted bad. My guy said due to the heat used it brings out the #*$&@ in soft metals like alum. He re-did them and they were ok but not perfect. I'm sure you are right though when it comes to smaller and thinner parts. It will weaken them. With all the parts that make up a skid-frame in my opinion there should be enough support and rigidity that stress won't be a factor.............I hope. But to your point I will definatly ask my guy if there is any concern for my application. Thanks.

 

[mcamzr]

A friend of mine went powder coat crazy a year ago, bent 3 spindle (over 5 weekends) on his rev in some crap trails. Those were the only coated parts he had trouble with.

 

[yamagone]

A friend of mine went powder coat crazy a year ago, bent 3 spindle (over 5 weekends) on his rev in some crap trails. Those were the only coated parts he had trouble with.

That doesn't give me the warm and fuzzy.

 

[Snowmobileaddict]

I did mine 3000 miles ago. No issues with breaks or bending. The finish is very durable and looks good.

I did request the shop doing the powder coating to mask the bottom side of the rail and the sides of the rail in order to keep the fitment of the hifax as close to stock as possible. In retrospect it probablly would have been fine if was coated completely though.

 

[OVR4D]

After doing a little searching on the interwebz, I'm recanting my earlier post. The following was taken from a bicycle forum where the original poster was asking about powdercoating an aluminum bike frame.

Powdercoating is a process where a powder is electrostatically stuck to metal then baked on. The baking procedure is done at around 390°F, the melting temperature for 6061 is 985°F and the annealing temperature for 6061 is 775°F for 2-3 hours. Unless you drastically mess up the cure cycle on powdercoat, you're not going to even touch the temperature where the aluminum structure changes. You might get into a precipitation hardening temperature, but you'd need to hold 320°F for 12 hours or more to see a difference.

I'm no metallurgist, but it seems to me the temperature used to bake the paint and in particular, the amount of time the piece is kept at this temperature is the key to whether the piece will be weakened or not ... based on what I've read on several powdercoater's sites who do post information about their process, NONE are heating parts long enough to affect the structural integrity of aluminum. So I guess I'll have to eat crow here and admit I was wrong. My apologies to all the powdercoaters out there.

 

[mcamzr]

A friend of mine went powder coat crazy a year ago, bent 3 spindle (over 5 weekends) on his rev in some crap trails. Those were the only coated parts he had trouble with.

That doesn't give me the warm and fuzzy.

Yea me either. At that time I had the exact same sled, same set up and was with him on the same trail every time.

 

[mcamzr]

On the other hand I had a zr that I did the whole skid and a arms and beat the crapmout of it with no issues for 2 years

 

[ManhattanMike]

I had Half Baked do all of my suspension parts last fall along with their beef up kit and had no problems over 1200 miles. I also did not have any issues with the hyfax going on, actually I think it may have been easier.

 

[biffdotorg]

Same here, Half baked did my skid and rails. It wasn't noticeably tighter to get them on.

They did fill the screw holes so that the PC process didn't fill in the threads. Otherwise, you would have to tap all the screw holes again. Namely those little bitches in the front fo the rail!!!

I did have to hit many of the non-threaded holes with a drill though. It's held up well for so far.

 

[yamagone]

I had Half Baked do all of my suspension parts last fall along with their beef up kit and had no problems over 1200 miles. I also did not have any issues with the hyfax going on, actually I think it may have been easier.

That's what I'm talking about! Nice! Is that a 'flat' black you went with? That's what I'm looking to do.