I checked out the threads recommended to me and wow, there is some great talent on this board. I can’t speak with definitive authority on cerakote but I have handled my fair share of firearms. Here are my honest thoughts—cerakote is great and does what it was meant to do. However, just like any finish, it will wear away over the years in the spots that are continually touched such as the cockng serrations on the slide. Powder coat and anodizing will do this too. That’s just what happens after you rub something (literally) 20,000 times.
Powder coat just offers something different. The various metal flakes, pearls, and candy colors are fun to show your friends. Like coated the valve covers on your 69 Camaro and seeing your friends’ face when you pop the hood and unveil some wicked color.
As I said, this is just for fun. I’ll do a L2 and see what happens. There’s no money to be made at $5 to $10 a piece, especially when you factor n cleaning, prepping, out gassing, and then adding and individually baking multiple coats. If I can get my powder covered, I’m fine as the rest may be a lot of work but it’s close enough to free not to matter,
I’ve not been brainwashed to believe anything….anodizing is chemically bound to the metal as an oxide. Aluminum oxide is quite hard, but I’ve seen good powder coat do about as well in the durability department.
You won’t beat anodizing for chemical or heat resistance……the chemistry just won’t allow for it. Aluminum oxide melts at a higher temperature than than the metal does.
Those are some pretty cool colors, and it would make for a different feel to the light.
Nice job!
With al the spectaculair changing colors powdered layers can achieve, well, I dont know if the source of light, the flashlight is ideal for it. But say a knife handle would be cool or anything used during the day.
The thing is, with anodizing, you drop the light, it will dent or scratch the aluminum, removing the aluminum and anodizing attached to it. With a good powder coated surface when you drop it the powder coat is a layer of protection on top of the aluminum that will take a lot of abuse, drops, constant rubbing ect, and never flake, break, chip or wear off. It is a LOT harder to scratch a powder coated surface. That’s not to say that powder coat can’t be damaged but it is a much more durable finish.
Red, I’d be more than willing to send you $45 if you want to buy an unanidized BLF A6 and powder coat it for me I won’t even be choosy, just leave it in your hands to use whatever color(s) you see fit to look best! I’ve been meaning to pick up an A6 anyway haha… So many convoys I haven’t seen the need but I’m all for a one-off!!!
You go buy an oven, a garage to put it in if you don’t already have a clean one (no cross contamination) with PLENTY of room, the $150 it costs for a dedicated circuit breaker, recepticale and 6GA wire to run the 220 for the oven, the whole powder coating system…,a decent one is NOT cheap, the powder and other consumables it takes to do the job….the type of tape you have to have is one time use and doesn’t go very far at about $20 a roll, … Then put your time into it, prep work is brutal if your working with used parts, ect ect…
No doubt in my mind the guy isn’t trying to get rich… The powder alone is an initial startup cost that would bankrupt a small village if you don’t have several jobs worth of work lined up wanting the same color.
I have a hobby powder coat kit and have done some stuff, also annoed some stuff back in my paintball days. PC is a great finish when used for the right application, I personally don’t feel using it on something that also doubles as a heat sink is it. I know it has some insulating properties even if they aren’t great (like ceramic coating per say). I think anno is more widely used because the aluminum oxide layer is better at allowing the heat transfer.
Now will powder coat make a light over heat, maybe, or maybe not. On a normal light I doubt it but many of us spend time trying to get the heat out of the light why risk wrapping the main line against it in insulation. Personally I’ll stick with anno on lights but this is all my opinion and you know what they say about those.
With the heat soak being what it is, the aluminum hosts can get up to 180* before something inside fries, solid rare/exotic metals will heat up to 200**, but you have to be running a triple at over 10A for 3-5 minutes which anyone whobhas a triple should know better than to do…. Anyway I like aluminum hosts better for hot builds, it tends to not get as hot in the hand as copper/brass/ and it doesn’t heat up as fast either. If you build the same light in a copper host as in an aluminum host within 60 seconds the copper head can reach temps over 130**, which is too hot to hold. The aluminum host will take 1:45 to get that hot, but it gets uncomfortably warm around 90 seconds… Both lights I was using a fresh vtc5 same 5000k xpl/fet builds.
So (in my opinion) adding a layer of powder coat to the surface of an aluminum light would further reduce the heat felt by my palm. Yes that would trap the heat inside the light but it won’t damage the coating at <200*F so I don’t really see a problem. The light won’t be running as cool or efficient? You would have had to turn it down to a lower mode to let it cool off before it fries the mcpcb or pops a solder joint off anyway. I rarely hit the 60 second turbo timer on any of my lights, sometimes if I’m showing off for a friend or trying to burn a piece of paper or heat shrink a wire, but on the occasion that I do it would be nice if it was only ~100 degrees instead of 115-120 where it’s getting uncomfortable to hold.
I’m actually really excited about a powder coated finish, the more I think about it the more I feel like it really is ideal, I hope you take me up on my offer red.
I think powder-coating is quite beautiful. I have a bike (Ventana Marble Peak FS) that has a blue powder-coat finish, very similar to the blue tube pic you posted. It looks awesome, and is very durable.
I migjht be interested myself in sending you a few lights!
I’m not going to do any of that.
I was simply pointing out the irony of the post. I would have said the same, whether he’d quoted $5 or $50.
If he gets some work, then good on him, I’m not here to bash the man. I myself do car grooming on the side, I’m in no position to mock.
As for the thermal insulation caused by powder coat, there is none. The powder, if applied correctly, simply isn’t thick enough to keep heat in the light. This subject came up numerous times when I was doing brake calipers. So, I went to the track with one coated and one uncoated caliper. Thermometer showed a five degree difference on immediate stop after running fifteen minutes at Hallett Raceway. I’ve measured caliper temps up to 600F on customer cars and no I’ll effects.
If someone is interested in having a light done just PM here. It’s a hobby that makes people happy so I enjoy it. I understand the irony of not looking for sales and then throwing out a price. That was a fair mark.
I can duplicate the cerakote in both thickness and shine. Understand, powder coat is like paint—matte colors leave a little texture naturally like cerakote. Semi-gloss and full gloss can be very very shiny. You won’t lose grip on the knurled area and any unknurled area would not be slicker than say the smooth portion of a D cell Maglite.
Hey, just wanted to say thank you for potentially bringing a new angle on our hobby. I’m really interested, I’m sure as most people would be, to see what could be done with powdering coating our babies. I think it would be awesome. What colors do you have available right now?
@ Redvalkyrie
Even if it’s just for fun, you should not feel bad about making some money, doing a light for someone else. I don’t think anyone here would begrudge you that, so go for a little more for each light and make a few bucks. Nothing wrong with that at all.
Yeah, agree fully with this. Besides, setting a crazy amazing giveaway sort of price like you’ve done could lead to a lot more work than you’re willing to take on. At 5 bucks I could see a whole lot of people being interested in your service. You could look up two weeks from now and have a hundred lights sitting on your bench waiting to be coated. Do you want that? Just something to consider.
On a related note, I recently bought my first coated light. Its cerakoted:
It feels great to hold and use, plenty of grip. And I love being able to get a color besides black. I don’t know about anybody else around here but I get pretty bored with all the plain black metal. Maybe that’s why I get unreasonably excited when Simon announces a new colored S2+.
On the other hand, my cerakoted light isn’t going to be as resistant to dings as an HA3 light would be. I can already tell it isn’t as tough since its already got a couple of (very tiny) marks and it hasn’t even been dropped yet. My type-2 colored ano lights obviously wear much easier, too. I would love it if some form of powder coating could be done thans tougher than cerakote, even if not quite up to HA3 standards. And yes I would be very interested in using your powder coating services.
Cerakote, powder coat, or just plain painting all depend heavily on the skills of the person doing them for best results. Done properly all make for durable coatings in the right circumstances. A baked enamel finish gives a higher durability than most people realize and would satisfy many careful light users but powder coating or Cerakoting will far exceed that if done well enough. That’s why I think your best approach is to have a few folks here either review lights you’ve done or have one done of their own for review.
I’m not heavily into modding or even the technical side of flashlights yet, but I am a user of these lights- some would say “abuser” would be a more appropriate term for me. While I don’t go around trying to “break things”, if I don’t “break it” then odds are that nobody will. And I’m very familiar with paints of all kinds and to a lesser degree baked-on enamels so I can compare to that. Plus it’s time I contributed something here more than my thoughts on BLF, so if you are interested in doing a light, I’ll pay to have you do one or two. PM me and we can work it out.
The thermal conductivity for Al is 2.37 W/(cm*K) while the thermal conductivity of polyester (what powder coating is made of) is .009 W/(cm*K).
Again I’m not saying it will destroy lights but it is a better insulator than you are giving it credit for. I’m coming across as hating powder coat but I really love the stuff, I have a truck with the whole frame and everything bolted to it coated. I just don’t think this is the ideal application for it.
I won’t even be choosy, just leave it in your hands to use whatever color(s) you see fit to look best! I’ve been meaning to pick up an A6 anyway haha… So many convoys I haven’t seen the need but I’m all for a one-off!!!
