Paint or powder coat?

[OzDucNut]

Any downside to powder coating the frame of my 350?

[blaat!]

The only downsides I can think of is that it will be more expensive, and unlike the original Ducati coating... if you are going for an authentic look.

[Gboblebeef]

Paint is much easier to touch up should something happen to mar the finish.

[Jordan]

As you can see at any rubbish dump, powder coating is great until it starts to rust and flake off. Then it's impossible to touch up and looks bloody awful.
It's even difficult to remove by normal methods. Abrasive blasting just heats it up and makes it melt, preventing proper cleaning.
Some will tell you that if done correctly it's OK. But that's not reassuring unless you do it yourself and you're an expert.
A pox on powder coat I say! See if you can find someone who still does baked enamel, or maybe 2 pack, or house paint and a good brush?

Jordan

[vintagetour]

I personally will never waste my time and money painting because I ride my restorations. If you are doing a Concours restoration and do not care about durability than you would probably want paint for originality. A good powdercoater will cost you from $150-$200 for the frame and a dozen pieces and you don't have to do anything but clean and degrease. If you include all your time and material to sandblast and paint it will cost you that much or more. Even good paint will chip off and powdercoating is so durable that I drove an allen wrench into a bolt that got powdercoated. It didn't even break the coating. Degrease anything that had oil around it though. Any residue left will melt out onto your powdercoating when it hits the oven. And spend some time with your powdercoater marking everything that you don't want coated. That will save you time removing it later as it won't come off easy. My $.02 worth
Tom

[OzDucNut]

thanks for the very interesting perspectives so far. I'm glad I asked. What a great resource this forum is. I was about to get it 2-packed then had the powder coat idea. Now I'm not sure that's the way to go. I imagine powder coating would be hard to remove if I ever wanted to change colour, whereas paint would be a simpler matter. Was told elsewhere that it's easier to get an earth when painted too plus you can do touch-ups if needed.
Any other pros or cons anyone can think of either way? Cost is not the issue here because if restoring such a collectible bike (although not entirely original or to concours condition) then what's a few extra hundred $ ?

[vintagetour]

I have removed powdercoating from bearing races with aircraft paint remover. It is tough but not impossible to remove. Grounding or earthing does take a little grinding to make sure you have a good connection. I also bare the metal to at least one motor mount to insure good grounding of the motor. All in all I still prefer powdercoating. I even do my headlight buckets because they are less susceptible to chaffing from the control cables. Many colors are available now. Satin black is a very close match to the original Ducati frame color. I even got a 24 hour turnaround on my last frame. It took my painter 3 months to do my tank so I may be a little biased Whatever you decide, good on you for bringing another one back to life. Good luck!

[double diamond]

Brake fluid will lift powdercoat. I have touched up powdercoat with regular enamel spray paint. The place that did a frame for me wasn't very meticulous with the masking and overdid it. I ended up with some bare metal so I just masked around the exposed metal and hit it with a spray can. The temperatures powdercoat is baked at are theoretically high enough to affect heat treating on aluminum or magnesuim but I've also heard personal experiences of powdercoating these materials with no problems. Guess it depends upon how much weight you assign to metalurgy science. MW

[thebossdj]

My two cents on this is to use Enamel paint. I think it is closer to keeping it original. Did a Norton years ago with power coat.. Was nice on the frame but some of the other parts were only ok. Also think power coat looks kinda plastic looking in some applications. No matter what you chose thanks for putting another single on the road!

[flynbulldog]

Powder coating and paint are nearly identical in composition with the main difference being the type of application and the lack of a solvent in powder.

The big advantage in powder is that the application is very environmentally friendly where paint is nasty to the environment with overspray and solvents to discard.

A really good powder coater can mix colors and get you an exact match. He can also create an almost paint-like finish.

A bad powder coater doesn't match colors, will get the material on too thick, and finish with a semi-dull orange peel surface.
Most powder coaters fall into this category.

It's misleading to say that powder coat is more durable than paint. Most coatings are much thicker than paint so it does resist chipping slightly better but with todays clear paint systems paint resists surface scuffing and dulling much better than powder finishes. Both powder and paint applied in equal thickness resist chipping equally (given proper surface prep).

Because powder is applied by electrostatic charge coverage is more uniform and on complex parts such as a frame you stand a better chance of having better coverage.
With paint the coverage is fully in the hands of the painter.

Finish is where the two systems really stand apart. Paint done by a good craftsman almost always has a smoother more glossy finish than powder.
I say almost because there are a handful of extremely talented powder coaters that can achieve a paint-like finish.

For me a good quality paint job is much better than powder coat on almost any part. The finish and resistance to dulling make paint my own first choice.

But the results, as usual, are dependent on the person doing the job. There are good and bad at both.
If your powder coater can't match colors there's a good chance that he isn't going to give you a finish equal to paint.

In fact there are very few powder shops that can achieve a finish similar to paint.

On a restoration I would never use powdercoating - it just doesn't look right.