Technics 1210 - DISASTER at the powder coaters!!! [NOW WTH PICS]
I thought I’d found a bargain - £70 to powder coat 4 deck plates, and 4 sets of tonearm pieces.
They messed it right up! After I showed them how to mask off the sensitive parts of the tonearm (bearings, etc..) the powder coaters sprayed over THE WHOLE parts!!! So now I’ve got FOUR sets of completely useless tone arm pieces (3 parts per tone arm).
The good news is, they gave me a full refund and have said they will pay for the 4 new tone arm assemblies.
So I’ve got a couple of questions for the modders (looking at you, djlotus and Xonetacular slight_smile::
The powder coaters said they could not sandblast/shot blast the plates because they were made of aluminium, so they just seanded them back. Is this true? Have you had deck plates blasted prior to powder coating/painting?
Do your sprayers/powder coaters mask off the tone arm pieces for you, or do you mask them yourselves and drop them off pre-masked?
I’m not put off - I still have 4 decks that need re-building! But I think I’ll go to a paint sprayer (auto/wet paint) for the next job…
I’m just gutted that I’ll be set back for a few weeks.
Couldn’t really tell you as i have not had any decks professionally powder coated or painted and I haven’t bothered messing with painting the tone arm parts. It’s more hassle than it’s worth.
As far as not being able to sand blast/bead blast aluminum goes. I’ve done it before and wouldn’t hesitate to do it on my decks. Not sure where that comes from that you can’t do it on aluminum.
1- hmm never heard of this, pretty sure u can blast and coat aluminum all day long. my faceplates and tone arm parts where blasted. I’ve had aluminum bike parts powder coated maaaany o time with no issue. I bet they didnt have the right kind of abrasive for aluminum blasting, that is more likely.
2 - I taped it off the tone arm parts to show them where I wanted them to mask it, then they went back and did a shittier job, getting coating on my lil bearings and stuff, I had to clean it all up with a scribe afterwards. It was a pain, but it worked out. The fixed little spikey pieces in the swivel parts, I just had them coat those, seems fine coated. If i did it again, I would tape it up myself with vinyl powder coating tape, because I think I would do a better job than those guys.
but yeah, good luck, powdercoating the faceplates i think is def worth the effort, cuz u know, paint is bound to chip, its only a matter o time.
Im not sure what they used on mine, i think glass beads? heres a lil more info… Abrasive Blasting Media| Media Blasting Suppliers | Kramer
i would just call around and tell them what you are trying to do, and just skip anyone that treats you like your dumb for asking about coating aluminum electronic parts… lifes to short fo that bs!
piz - I think next time I’ll do the masking myself. Also - anyone know if baking the parts in the oven will affect the bearings? Xone - re: not coating the tone arm pieces - that’s crossed my mind many, many times today…
it is 99% cosmetic, but the blasting and coating does def have a subtle difference on the thickness of the metal, and thus have a lil bit of effect on performance, but shouldnt be out of range of the default technics settings
Never heard of blasting cast aluminum posing an issue but I have not had it done.
To prep my decks for paint, I use a self etching aluminum primer on the bare metal surfaces. I don’t prime or sand the rest as my painter bakes them and therefore runs a slight sand on them in the booth.
As for masking, I mask everything myself. After trying to explain my needs to my painter we agreed that it would be better for me to mask it all myself. I also mask off the lower part of the bridge as to prevent rubbing of the swivel and bridge after paint since the tolerances of those parts are very small.
As I understand it, powder coating is a chemical process not unlike chroming or gold plating. It may be my ignorance, but I’ve not heard of spraying powder coating. The reason the coating is tougher than paint is because of the chemical process which chemically bonds the paint to the metal.
Also, don’t give up on your parts. With a little (ok, a lot) of patience, you can salvage those parts. Use q-tips and toothpicks to apply acetone to the bearings and pivots. Let stand for 15 minutes and begin to clean up. You may need to use a baby-nose-sucker-thing to remove it from the bearings. Once done, just re-lube as you would during normal reassembly using a silicon based lubricant.
The bearings are sensitive to damage but they are simply ball bearings. All normal physics and processes still apply.
slight_smile::
