To Paint or to Powder Coat?

Are you familiar with the differences with painting and powder coating? Well lemme tell ya, I was thinking of the easiest way to explain it and got inundated with YouTube videos…holy cow there are some opinions out there!

Well here at Way Welding & Fabrication, we have opinions too. In fact the wife has several specific to me…but I won’t go into that here.

For paint, we use direct-to-metal (DTM) acrylic paint. We use a spray gun to apply the paint evenly across the product. If you buy a bare steel product and decide to paint it yourself, make sure you buy the DTM paint as most others will have a hard time sticking to the metal. Based on limited space, we currently only offer paint on CNC plasma cut products. Please don’t ask me to paint handrails! It’s too much!!!

For powder coating, we partner with R & S Powder Coating LLC in Colorado Springs. Powder coating uses electricity to fuse colored powder particles to the metal. So unlike paint that is applied wet and then air dried, powder coating uses a dry powder and then bakes the metal in a 400 degree oven to cure and finish. Because of this process, powder coating is more resistant to scratching, chipping, and other wear than paint. Of course, it also costs more.

I recommend powder coating for all outdoor products, and both outdoor and indoor handrails. It really is worth the extra money because it will extend the life of your product. For all other indoor products, save some cash and go with paint.

I recently had the opportunity to replace an outdoor fence that had a little run-in with a motor vehicle. Check out the difference between the before and after (powder coated) pictures!

Before…

After!