**Title:** Powder Coating Valve Cover: A First-Timer's Experience

**Introduction**

Hey there! I'm just gonna let it kind of slowly cool down for about 20, 30, 40 minutes, and then we'll pull it all the way out of the oven. But I gotta say from here, it's looking pretty good. Sure, look shiny.

**Comparing Results with a Professional**

Chris is back and he's got his valve cover that he's completed on a professional level. Now, let's compare my work to the pro's. Keep in mind, this is my first time. How'd this go for you? - These are another day in life for us, just pretty straightforward, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense, and honestly, you know what? Yours looks pristine, perfect, flawless. Mine looks decent.

**Assessing the Outcome**

I mean, gimme a grade, I want a rating, I want you to grade me and rate me. - A C, C plus. (All booing) All right, I mean, I was thinking more like B maybe, but... (both laughing) All right, now, I'll take C plus.

**Discussing Costs, Time, and Effort**

Let's talk about cost, time, effort, and the result, the outcome. First off, cost, you charged me 200 bucks. - Yes. I spent about 400 bucks. We're okay with spending a little bit more money to own the tools. Good deal there.

In terms of time, this took me things about five hours which is a little bit better than I expected, I was expecting closer to eight, you with all your tools, how long do you think it took you start to finish once you got started here? - Maybe two, three hours start to finish. Okay. Or something like this.

Now, effort, like I said, you've got the chemical tank, the sand blaster. I was sweating a lot more than you probably did. So yeah, the effort was higher but that can be reduced from the future, so I'm cool with the effort.

**Conclusion**

Let's talk about the outcome. It was a fun process and the result was pretty dang good, so I think moving forward, I could do even better. I'm calling this, you know what? No offense to you because your job is perfect, but I won. (All cheering) Thank you for all the tips, tricks, and pointers that helped me get this done, and thank you for doing such a sick job on the K-series cover.

**Promoting Donut Media**

That yellow is pretty good. Reminds me of something. Jeremiah could be on a tool. Go get yourself our new tool shirt at donutmedia.com. That's right, we came out with our all-new tools shirt, it's made out of 100% corn, so it's the perfect shirt to wear while you work on your car or to give to that one friend who forgets the name of that one tool.

**Call to Action**

This is probably possibly my favorite shirt we've ever made. First off, I love the color purple and it looks sick against this gray, and it's like a cheat sheet. If you're in like automotive school, have the person that sits in front of you wear their shirt and you'll get everything right on the test. Donutmedia.com, get you one today.

**Final Thoughts**

Well, we did it. I powdered a coat of valve cover and it doesn't look too terrible, and of course, Chris did a perfect job. I learned a new skill this week and I hope you guys learned some stuff as well. So, go follow Chris, @velocitypowdercoating, follow me, @zachjobe, follow donut, @donutmedia, but before you do that, like this video and subscribe to the channel please, and I'll be right here licking my ketchup and mustard.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Oh, come on, you're stupid.- This gun kinda sucks.Like what the (beep)?- You know you can do itwhen you're done powder coating.- Why?- You can murder some money.(both laughing)- You're up.- Should I pay a pro a bunch of moneyto powder coat this valve cover?Or is it something Ican do myself at home?Should I DIY,or should I don't?♪ Do it ♪♪ Don't do it ♪- Thanks to carparts.comfor sponsoring today's video.Everyone struggles with relationships,in your relationship with your car,it's no different.So, Adam, what brings you in here today?- Well, my Honda here,I've done nothing but love.- Hmm.- Almost got me into an accident,it's unappreciative,unappreciative of allthe love that I give it.- That sounds like it mightbe a toxic relationship.Honda, what is your perspective?- He's lying,we almost got into an accidentbecause he won't fixme with quality parts.- Hmm.- You call that love?- Love doesn't have a single definition.- Yeah, do you feel that?Do you smell that?That exhaust,that's negative energy coming outbut I think I know the perfect wayto make it simple.Adam, have you consideredgoing to carparts.com?carparts.com is a smarter wayto shop for auto parts connecting youwith the right part at theright price hassle-free.Plus carparts.comhas a lifetime replacementguarantee on parts,so you can place trustin your relationshipwith your car for a lifetime.- So, if I give loveand quality to my car,I'll get love and quality back.- Exactly, now it's timefor you two to hug it out.Go on, hug, hug your car.Get the right parts right nowwith a guaranteed fit at carparts.com.Yeah, oh, that's sweet.- Of course a true procan give you a great result every time,but if you're the DIY type like your boy,you can always take a crackat doing stuff yourself.So today, I'm gonna takea crack at powder coating.What is powder coating you ask?Well, it's a painting and ceiling processfor metal parts that's very durableand can withstand a lot of heat.So, brake calipers,wheels, things like that,that are made outta metaland need to be durableare great candidatesfor being powder coated.Powder coating requiresthat you bake the powderto give it its glossand ultimately theprotection it's known for.And that means your partsneed to go into an oven.So, there's an oven in the garage.(upbeat music)But there's more tothis than just an oven,so let's take a look atall the stuff that I got.Okay, here's what I've gotfrom the old Harbor Freight,a total powder coating gun set up,got some powder,valve cover from the Miata.This is polyester masking tape,got some acetone, sandpaper,some Brio pads, some brushes,some stuff you mightalready have laying around.I also spent $200 on an oven.So all in all, I've spent about $350.Now, let's go to the pro shop,see his setup,and find out what he would charge meto do the same job.We're out here at Moreno Valleyat Velocity Powder Coating.I've got my K-series valve coverand I got Chris here, Chris.- How's it going?- Not too bad.Thanks for having us.- Good to have you here.- I understand you'll be powder coatingthis valve cover for us.- We are.- Showing ushow a pro does it.- Yes.- How much would that cost me?- Something like that would runabout 200,anything four cylinderaround that size rangewould be that price.- Sure.And like you said,any of these colors pretty much?- Yes, any of those colors.- All right, well, that's a nice variety.200 bucks though I mean,that's not too bad,I already spent morethan that on the oven,so that's (beep).Well, yeah, it's fine.I'd love for you to walk us throughwhat you're gonna do with this thingand teach me some stuff.- Sounds good,let's come on back.The first step would begoing into the chemical tank.It's gonna strip the paint offand it's gonna get rid of all this grimand leave you with a freshvalve cover to start with.One sits out of the strip tank,it goes into the sink,we just rinse it off,probably takes five minutes,again no elbow grease,just rinsing it off hose.The next step after it's rinsed offis gonna go into the oven,just dry it up on the inside,nothing's stripping out of it,nothing's coming out of thepores behind the baffles.- Nice.- And after that, it cools downand it's ready for thesandblasting cabinet.- Ah, sandblasting, my favorite part.- This is our Trinco pressure cabinet.This is all self-fed.I don't have to do any manual laboras far as filling it up,it kinda just does its own thing.- Yeah, I like that.I don't have a blast cabinet of any sort.- After sandblast finalstep would be to mask it,any threads, matingsurfaces, anything like that,it's all gonna get mask.- Right, right, right.I have never used a powdercoat gun in my life.- Okay.- So, let's look at your setupand talk to me about it.- Yeah.- How does it work?- This is our Gema OptiPro powder coating unit.Something like this retailsat about 9,000.- Oh boy, well, all right.What does this do?That like a cheap Harbor Freight gunlike what I'm probably gonna use.Doesn't do.- There's a lot of variables,just overall consistencyof how the powder flows,how it fluidized thepowder out of the box.- How long would this takeyou from start to finish?- A valve cover,start to finish would probably takeabout maybe three to four hours.- I'll let you get to powdercoating our valve cover.- Sounds good.- All right, so let's go over,how this is gonna go in terms of cost.First off, way cheaper than I expected.Chris is only gonna $200,do the valve cover andI've already spent 350,but the good news is like always,now we have the tools to do this again.In terms of effort, I am screwed.It's just gonna take me way longerand it is gonna be a lot more effortthan Chris has to put inwith his sand blaster and his dunk tank.I'm gonna have to do all that by hand.If I do it inside of eight hours,the result comes out good,and the effort isn't too bad,then I will be ready to call this a win.And with that start the old timer.(upbeat music)Guy just a little degreaser firstand should take care of most of this.(upbeat music continues)I wish I had a bigger sink,maybe a chemical tank.So, let's check in on time,we are at just under an hour right now.Valve cover is sufficiently de grimed,it's time to sand it.I'm just gonna givethis thing a once over,all over the bits thatwe wanna powder coat.The most important thing hereis to get all the oiland grit and grime off this thing,and we did a pretty good job of thatwith just the brushesand the degreaser and the soap,but sand paper's gonnatake this a step furtherand give us basically a brand new surface.(upbeat music)Okay, we are finally done sandingand it's been about an hourand a half since we started.My hands, arms, fingers,numb, dead, tired.It took Chris like fiveminutes with a sand blaster,and that was fun.This wasn't very fun,I gotta be honest.So, now we gotta clean this thing up,and then I got a mask,and then she's ready.(liquid splashing)(brush sousing)(water splashing)Our valve cover is cleanand the next step in the processis gonna be to dry thisthing off very well.And since I have a fancy new oven,I'm gonna use the ovento dry the valve cover.Now, you may be thinkingthat you have an oven at your house,so, one of the big expendituresof powder coating is alreadytaken care of for you,but that's not really true,you definitely shouldn'tuse your parents' ovento do powder coating.The powder basically juststays in there foreverand you don't wanna eat that,so, buy a cheap old oven and use it.Let's see if this thing works.(metal clanking)All right.(beep)Bake it.(upbeat music)Okay, the next step in this processis gonna be to mask off all the partsthat we don't want to powder coat.This is polyester tapeand it's built to endure heatbut this is what you wannause for powder coating,'cause again, it's gotta go in the ovenand we're gonna make some cones like theseand then these can go in these spots.(upbeat music)Well, hot dog.This thing is pretty muchready to powder coat.I'm gonna wipe it down one last timewith acetone just to make sureit's clean as it can be.But now it's time to setup our powder coating gunand talk about how it worksand what the heck's going on?What makes powder coating so cool?All right, so first off,we gotta understand that powder coatingis sort of like painting,but with dry paint.The paint is the powder.And then the curing process in the ovenis what kinda melts this paintand flows it all outand turns it into aglossy good final finish.Here we've got our$70 central machinerypowder coding system,and it's basically anelectrified paint gun.We've got this positivelycharged wire in hereand it electrifies, itgives a positive chargeto all the powder coming out of the gun.And this goes to the partthat we're powder coatingand it grounds that part.So, we've got a negativepart with positive particlesand they wanna stick to each otherand they cling to it just long enoughto get you to the curing process,and then once you're cured,you're good to go.(powder coating gun hissing)- Ooh.Boy, that's a nice powder.(upbeat music)All right, that seems likeit's probably gotta be enough.I mean you can tell,this is a high quality tool,you can feel it.I'm gonna throw my mask onand then we're gonna doa couple test spritzesand see what the pattern looks like,we're gonna be lookingfor a fine even mist.- 4:20 it is.- Oh, (beep) on the dot.Okay, so, we've obviouslygot the gun with the triggerand that's what expels the powder,but there's a foot switchand that is for initiating the voltage.So, without pushing the foot switch,this won't workbut when you push the foot switch,it electrifies the powder,makes it stick to the part.So, let's see if that proves to be true.(upbeat music)And so I'm gonna be tryingto kind of point this thingin basically all sorts of different anglesbut I wanna make sure thatthe powder's able to fallinto all the cracks and crevices.So, just kind of coating it real heavy,but hitting it from allthe different angles.This gun is like seems tobe working pretty well.(upbeat music)The foot switch sucks though.Okay.(upbeat music continues)- Okay, it looks pretty good.It is all red from what I can see,now that I say that I see one spotthat I can see some bare metal,so, I'll spray that againbut I've got two spots here,right here and right here,where I feel like maybe Iwent a little bit too heavy,and so now it's got kindof a almost fish eye effectbut you can see right here,it's got a little bit of acne going on.Well, you know what?The spraying was theeasiest part thus far,so let's blow this off withan airgun and start over.(upbeat music)- This is the most satisfying part, yeah.(upbeat music continues)Okay, right back to where we started.We had a little bit of inconsistencywith the spray of the gun,you might have noticed I was shaking itto get like heavier spray,that kinda sucks.I don't know what to do to avoid it,but see how she goes.Let's give this another shot.(upbeat music)- The issue right now is thatit's sort of coming out inconsistently.(upbeat music continues)This gun kinda sucks,very not fun to use, so short,like what the (beep)(upbeat music)I think we're gonna call that done.Okay, so you can see hereat the front at like the cam cover area,we still have a little bit ofthat sort of pitting looking,I think it's just fromlaying a little bit heavyand possibly being a little bit too closeto the valve cover.Let's compare my cheap gunto his super expensive gun.Mine sucked.The cords are way too shortand there's too many of 'em.The foot's switch sucksand it was super inconsistent.His gun was doing a lot of tricks,he did that wheel in no time flatand I think he could havedone it with his eyes closedand that's definitelyhis experience and skillbut also those $9,000 toolsworked pretty dang good.I am still interested tosee how this comes outafter curing.So, let's put it in the ovenand see how my job turns out.$70 gun might do good enough,we'll see, I don't know.All right, the part is in the oven finallyand this part is pretty important.So, we've got the oven at 400 degreesand basically all thatneeds to happen hereis the part, the valve coveror whatever your powder coating needsto get up to that temperature.400 degrees, all thatpowder, as it warms upis gonna kind of flow togetherand melt into one big,nice layer of powder coat.So, we'll see it go fromkind of dull and hazy powderto hopefully a nice glossy shiny finishright before our very eyes.Bright in the sensor.(upbeat music)Ooh, she's glossing up,getting close,we're 340 degreesbut you can see that lookslike some shiny stuff.All right, no peeking,no more peeking.(upbeat music continues)And she's cooked.Okay, so, there's a few more thingsthat are important though,before we go yankingthis out and ogling it,I turned off the oven,I've got the door open,and now I'm just gonna letit kind of slowly cool downfor about, I don't know,20, 30, 40 minutes,and then we'll pull it allthe way out of the oven.But I gotta say from here,it's looking pretty good.Sure, look shiny.Okay, Chris is back andhe's got his valve coverthat he's completed ona professional level.Now, let's compare my work to the pro's.Keep in mind, this is my first time.How'd this go for you?- These are another day in life for us,just pretty straightforward, yeah.- Yeah, that makes sense,and honestly, you know what?Yours looks pristine, perfect, flawless.Mine looks decent.- Yeah.- And I'm pretty happywith how it came out for my first time,$70 gun.- Yeah.- And up and running off a generator.Okay, so you can see in a few areasI had some poor coverage.- That's more of a spray issue,inconsistency with the gun,your gun having trouble doingwhat it's supposed to do.- Yeah.And as you guys sawthat gun was likeshooting a bunch sometimesand then none other times,so it was a little bit tricky.What do you think?I mean, gimme a grade,I want a rating,I want you to grade me and rate me.- A C, C plus.(All booing)- All right, I mean, I wasthinking more like B maybe,but... (both laughing)All right, now, I'll take C plus.- Yeah, give him a (beep) F man!(All laughing)- Okay, so, now let's cover a few things.Let's talk about cost, time, effortand the result, the outcome.First off cost, you charged me 200 bucks.- Yes.- I spent about 400 bucks.We're okay with spendinga little bit more moneyto own the tools.Good deal there.Now, in terms of time,this took me things about five hourswhich is a little bitbetter than I expected,I was expecting closer to eight,you with all your tools,how long do you think ittook you start to finishonce you got started here?- Maybe two, three hours start to finish.- Okay.- Or something like this.- And for a very good result.But I kinda like doing this stuff,so time's okay with me.Now effort, like I said,you've got the chemicaltank, the sand blaster.I was sweating a lot morethan you probably did.So yeah, the effort was higherbut that can be reduced from the future,so I'm cool with the effort.Now, let's talk about the outcome.It was a fun processand the result was pretty dang good,so I think moving forward,I could do even better.I'm calling this,you know what?No offense to you becauseyour job is perfect,but I won.(All cheering)Thank you for all thetips, tricks and pointersthat helped me get this done,and thank you for doing such a sick job onthe K-series cover.- Yeah.- And that yellow is pretty good.- Yeah, donut yellow.- Reminds me of something.Jeremiah could be on a tool.Go get yourself our new tool shirtat donutmedia.com.That's right,we came out with our all new tools shirt,it's made out of 100% corn,so it's the perfect shirt to wearwhile you work on your caror to give to that one friendwho forgets the name of that one tool.- Maybe it'll help you getthat project car up and runningthat you've been planning on working on.- Yeah, the problem isthat I can't rememberwhat pliers are called.(both laughing)- This is probably possiblymy favorite shirt we've ever made.First off, I love the color purpleand it looks sick against this gray,and it's like a cheat sheet.If you're in like automotive school,have the person that sits infront of you wear their shirtand you'll get everythingright on the test.Donutmedia.com,get you one today.Trust me, best shirt ever.- Hmm, so soft.- Well, we did it.I powdered a coat of valve coverand it doesn't look too terrible,and of course, Chris did a perfect job.I learned a new skill this weekand I hope you guyslearned some stuff as well.So, go follow Chris,@velocitypowdercoating,follow me, @zachjobe,follow donut, @donutmedia,but before you do that,like this video and subscribeto the channel pleaseand I'll be right here lickingmy ketchup and mustard.Hmm, big mustard guy.Ooh, I love that ketchup.Hmm, find me a hot dog.