woo hoo! Replicated CAD plating with powder coat!

Ok, before anyone says anything about just doing things "properly" and doing actual CAD/Zinc plating, keep in mind the following:

1) Not everyone has a plater in their back yard
2) Sending out expensive parts poses a chance of risk. How would you like to lose 20-30 micellaneous brackets/supports/pieces?
3) Sometimes, you just want to plate a couple parts... not every part on the car...


But, you can plate at home with the CASWELL kit you say!? Have your tried that? Its a huge pain. Gallons of chemicals floating around, heaters, power supplies, and acids... I did this for a year. The results looked "good." But, it wasn't worth the effort. And, after a year and a bunch of car washes, the parts weren't shiny any more... Drive it in the snow/salt once and see what it looks like. YELLOW ZINC IS NOT CAD. CAD plating last a really long time. YELLOW ZINC, not so much. I was really disappointed in the durability...

What about the kit from eastwood? You can paint to match! Yeah... except it comes off with gas, harsh chemicals, heat, and scratches easily. If you want to do this option, take a piece of CAD to a paintshop, and have them make you a quart of PPG paint scanned of the part. I did this, and its a good 80% match. Looks good from 5 feet away. Problem is that it isn't transparent. Its not as shiny as "new" cad, but replicates 2-3 year old cad pretty well... Its a pain to do though, as you have to keep cleaning your paint guns...

So, why powder coat? Super durable, super cheap, can do a part at a time...

I tried tons of powders to get something that looks really CLOSE. The key is that CAD looks transparent...

Here is what I figured out, and I hope it helps others. The results are "PRETTY GOOD." It looks like 2-3 year old CAD that has faded. Thats the look I wanted, as I wanted it to match the rest of the car parts.

The key was using eastwood gold, mixed in various proportions of eastwood satin clear...

Tutorial to follow...

PS. I scoured the internet, and I couldn't find ANY SITE, that shows how to do this. There are sites powdercoating wheels, but not replicating CAD!!!

 

Alright, here come the pics...

Here are various pieces of steel, with various coats...

The first piece of steel is raw, galvanized...

Second piece is covered in Eastwood translucent gold... which is gold plus high gloss. I don't think this is available anymore. Found this in my friends garage and "hoped" it would look like CAD... To me, it looks way to shiny...

Third piece is 1 part gold, to 1 part satin clear...

fourth piece is 1 part gold, to 2 parts satin clear...
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Ok, on the pic above notice that the staining of the sample pieces shows through... That is intentional. You WANT to be able to see the metal, thats what makes it look like CAD...

Sample piece 1 is WAY TOO SHINY...

Number 2 isn't very transparent...

Number 3 looks really good!

Number 4 is too transparent...

Also keep in mind, how thick a layer you put on makes a HUGE difference...

With a thin layer, the 1:1 looks right... But when I put it on too thick, it looked like paint...

For a thicker finish, 1:2 looks really good. The thinner the coat you put on the more realistic it looks, but the less protection it offers...

Now, on to some parts...

 

Here are some pics of the alteranator and airconditioner brackets...they probably looks like yours. Especially if you live in the midwest...

They were dirty, with fading of the CAD in many places, and areas that were turning black in color...

Tried cleaning them... looked somewhat better...

Tried polishing them... that just got a lot of the ZINC off...
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The last pic above shows what it looks like after the part was sand blasted, slightly polished, and coated 1:3 with the powder mix...

Don't know if it shows in the pic, but it has a sheen to it, and is slightly transparent...

It looks almost identical to the pieces I did with the CASWELL plating kit, which I had bead blasted before.

You could make it look even better, if you polished the parts to a high shine before powder coating... But I was worried the powdercoat wouldn't have anything to "bite" into, and would come off easily...

 

And here is the before and after:

PS... The fuel supply lines to the fuel distributor were done in PPG Gold 10 years ago when I first bought the car... They look great!!! Bead blasted, degreased, and 2 part PPG single stage gold cutom mixed to match CAD... Paint guy said it was basically a BMW gold color...

Notice on the brackets how you can "see" the metal underneath... Thats what makes it look so cool...
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I was doing some more experimenting, and the best results were as follows:

1) Bead blast the parts
2) Degrease
3) Nice coat of clear satin for protection. Heat for 20 minutes.
4) Pull it out of the oven and IMMEDIATELY dust coat with 1:3 mix until color/sheen desired is achieved.
5) Bake another 20 minutes

Voila, all done!!!

The beauty of the system above is that when you add the gold mix over the base powder, it IMMEDIATELY melts because the metal is at 400 degrees, showing you your end results. You stop adding tint when you get the result you want...

PS. I have the harbor freight powdercoating gun, works just fine. I have the EASTWOOD gun too... cant say I can tell the difference...

 

I used black slag to sand blast it...

I originally tried to "save" the remaining CAD with the hope it would provide some corrosion resistance under the powder coat... that kind of worked on some parts. But other were just contaminated, and the powder coat bubbled up...

 

Also, for anyone that wants to experiment, there are websites that sell highly reflective gold powder coat. That would probably look even better, but I didn't have access to that...

Again, if you are looking for something that looks like brand spanking new highly polished CAD... this ain't it. If you want something that looks like 2-3 year old slightly patina'd CAD... this will get you there!

Hope that helps folk out! Just wanted to add back as I have learned so much from the threads on here from folks that took the time to do detailed posts with pictures!

Bo

 

Thanks...

I thought I was doing something wrong when I used the CASWELL kit...

It was very hard to plate any pieces that weren't flat. Also, the coating provided very little protection. I suspect commercial coatings are much thicker.

But I think a lot of it is just the fact that its ZINC, and not CAD. I replaced much of the hardware on my car with new zinc screws, bolts, nuts, etc. The car is RARELY driven, and never in the snow/salt, and RARELY in rain.... 10 years later,all the zinc hardware is flat/dull/oxidized.