Need Colorful Coating for Steel, More Durable Than Paint 2

[TimtheToolMan]

I need to coat steel hand tools with a colorful coating that is more durable than paint.

-Bright appealing color is very desirable
-Temperature range, 0 to 120 F
-Weight of parts, 5 to 45 pounds
-Rust protection would be nice but not required
-Material is 17-4 stainless steel investment casting
-Volume is low, ideal batch size for processing, 25 to 50
-100 to 500 parts per year?
-Keeping cost down is important but would like all options

 

[rhodie]

http://www.plastidip.com/industrial/plastidip.html

It is great stuff...

 

[TimtheToolMan]

Rhodie,

Thanks for the idea. The colors are bright and it lends it self to low volume. It seems to be more durable than paint.

 

[magic612]

Powder coating offers almost limitless color options - very tough, gets heated to 400F for curing (so can handle the 120 easily). Cost varies depending on how you want to powder to perform, as many different blends exist now. Numerous job shops nationwide that could handle 1 part to millions per year.

 

[TimtheToolMan]

We have used powder coating on some of our tools and it looks very good new but the tools are banged around a lot and one part sees very high reaction loads and they tend to look very beat up in no time.

 

[alexit]

Powder coating is still paint. Maybe try vacuum deposition of different elements (I've seen samples of open/box wrenches done in titanium...looks like gold...like those big hunting pistols.)

Alex

 

[JTreglio]

In addition to the colors, vacuum deposited coatings are very, very hard -- after all, they were developed to use on metal cutting tools. We coat the large guns, including the two Magnum's Demi Moore used in the second Charlie's Angels movie. Various shades of gold are possible, along with a mauve color and, of course, gray (dark and light). Other colors, like blue and green, are possible but very difficult to deposit, i.e., expensive, and difficult to duplicate. They also do not wear as well as the others.

Jim Treglio
Molecular Metallurgy, Inc.

 

[Compositepro]

A plasisol coating is definitely what you need. It is commonly used for colorful plasic coatings for tools. Very inexpensive and easy to apply by dip coating. Just preheat tool to 350 F dip in coating and it its ready to use in a couple minutes, as soon as it cools down. This company was very responsive to me when I needed some for a new application:

http://www.loesent.com/

 

[busq]

PVD coatings would be a good choice for your project.


the cost effective coatings might be

TiN- bright golden (recommended)
TiNC-mauve
CrN- bright white
TiC-gray-light-dark-black

the substrate should be polished if you need a good finish

excellent hardness, abrasion and scrach resistance.

 

[TimtheToolMan]

I really like the appearance of the PVD coatings. How do the costs compare to other processes?

 

[busq]

the key to the PVD coatings firstly is the quantity for each coating,
secondly the thickness requested.

TiN or TiNC must be most cost effective.

compare to the other processes, based on your requirement, I do think PVD coatings is quite a good way.

well, if possible, I would like to help you.