Tumblers

[darcshadow 1,641]

Not that any of us need another hobby project but I've gotten into powder coating and my wife asked me to powder coat a Yeti Rambler. To damn expensive to practice on so I bought a cheap knock off from Walmart and gave it a go. Using the vinyl cutter I cut the designs the used it as a stencil for the powder, layered down a black design, then went back and put a candy pink over the entire glass. Not perfect, but turned out well and I'm sure the next one will go a little better.

 

 

 

 

[xpaperman 719]

I would be interested to know how to get into powder coating at home.

[Quitetitan4 90]

Eastwood has a pretty inexpensive kit .

[Cal 393]

That looks pretty nice!

Cal

[mrfibble 77]

sweet

[arty-rc 719]

 

[darcshadow 1,641]

The Eastwood kit is what I have. It's only $90 right now and does a decent job for hobby type stuff. Most parts also need to be blasted to clean them up prior to powder coating so you'll want a blaster cabinet, and then you'll need an oven to back the parts in. For now I have a large toaster oven but I'm keeping an eye out on craigslist for a cheap/free oven to stick out in the garage.

 

Powders are pretty cheap to, $15-$20 or a pound and you can do a lot with a pound. Like vinyl the real cost of powder coating is the initial hardware cost and then just time, the actual product is really cheap.

[xpaperman 719]

I have the compressor, the toaster oven and the blast cabinet.... looks like I just need the kit and some colors!

[darcshadow 1,641]

You'll want a booth of some kind as well to put the part in while you're shooting the powder. I just use a large cardboard box with a small fan in the back to pull air through the box and keep the powder from drifting back toward me. Not the best setup, but it didn't cost me anything and works well enough for now. My goal is to build something eventually and put laminate on it so that it is smooth and easy to clean. There is a good amount of powder "wasted" that if you have a clean surface and clean brush you could reclaim about 80% of the wasted powder and reuse it.

 

I also just picked up an IR thermometer to better know what the temp. of the item in the oven and adjust the oven as necesary. The toaster oven doesn't do well at regulating it's temperature when I stand it on it's side to fit the taller items in.

[darcshadow 1,641]

Second go at a tumbler. Used vinyl as mask to lay down the black, baked it, then put the yellow over. I'm really pleased with how well the black shows through the yellow, much better than the pink did. Using 631 as the mask, but it's a bit tricky. Let it bake too long, try to take it off while the cup is too hot, or after it cools down and the adhesive doesn't want to come off. Have to find that sweet spot of warm but not too hot and the vinyl peals off easy but have to be quick cause the cup cools pretty quickly.

 

I also think my toaster oven may be too small to do these. I think I "burnt" the yellow a little. You can't really see in the photo, but there is some discoloration of the yellow that I believe is because it was too close to the heating elements.

 

And I know the image is copyrighted and all but this is just for my pleasure and Dodge has enough of my money, they can give me this little thing. ha!

[castironrobbie 30]

These look sick

Love that snake tumbler

[xpaperman 719]

so you sprayed yellow over the black and the black stands out like that?

[PatrickR 37]

Awesome!

[darcshadow 1,641]

Yes, the yellow and pink are transparent/candy colors so anything under it will show through. The black shows through better on the yellow than it did the pink.

[Dakotagrafx 7,298]

love the ideas and brings back the old days when we experimented with lots of stuff.  also love the idea of the durability of the powder coating!

[darcshadow 1,641]

Yeah, I was a bit surprised how easily the stainless steel showed scratches and wear so the powder coating will prevent that. The next one I'm going to do will be a non transparent color with a second layer on top. It'll be a test to see how well the design holds up since it will have a bit of an edge to it, that in theory could chip. I believe powder on powder will hold up well. I will also make one with a negative space design to see how well the powder hold up on the steel alone. I suspect I may need to put a clear coat over that one to get a long lasting design.

[xpaperman 719]

I got all my stuff in over a week ago and have still not had time to take it out of the box and play with it

[T-Shirt Lady 2]

On 6/7/2016 at 2:50 PM, darcshadow said:

Not that any of us need another hobby project but I've gotten into powder coating and my wife asked me to powder coat a Yeti Rambler. To damn expensive to practice on so I bought a cheap knock off from Walmart and gave it a go. Using the vinyl cutter I cut the designs the used it as a stencil for the powder, layered down a black design, then went back and put a candy pink over the entire glass. Not perfect, but turned out well and I'm sure the next one will go a little better.

 

They are gorgeous. How much time did it take to complete each one?

 

 

 

[darcshadow 1,641]

This was my first one, start to finish including setup and cleanup, probably about 2 hours. Could get it down to maybe 45min per if doing the same design and color on several cups.

[OWJones 1,981]

Is that one of the Ozark Trail tumblers?  I bought one last month and have been extremely impressed with it.  It is ever bit as nice feeling as the Yeti mugs for about 1/4 the price.  I saw a YouTube video where they compared the Yeti, Orca and Ozark Trail tumblers side by side - filled them ice and dumped out the melted water every few hours until there was no more ice.  I know for sure the Ozark Trail mug won, it still had frozen ice longer than the Yeti - something like 52-54 hours before it all melted.

I took mine to St Louis in July during one of the hottest weeks of summer and would fill it with iced tea every morning before we would go to the zoo, museum, etc. and leave it in the vehicle and it always still had ice floating in my drink, even after sitting in a hot car on 90° days...

The only real distinguishing feature between the two is that the Yeti tumbler has a Yeti logo embossed near the bottom, and the Ozark Trail has the Ozark Trail logo embossed in basically the same spot and their logos in the center of the lids - it wouldn't surprise me to find they are both made in the same factory. 

Found the YouTube video -- Yeti is on the left, Ozark Trail is on the right - you can see how very similar they are in appearance.

 

[Go-C Graphics 856]

The story as it was told to me was Yeti had an 2 exclusive contract with the manufacture.  By the time yeti marketing had made the cup popular it only had 6 months left of it's contract.  The manufacture wouldn't renew the contract and now you have RTIC and Ozark all man by the same manufacture.   

I've been doing a few cups.

Laser engraved.  Will not Peel off, Wash off, Or fade.  

 

Mock-up on the left and actual engraved cup on the right.

[Macon Innovations 228]

What are you using to add the color? If you don't mind me asking

[xpaperman 719]

If using a laser engraver, I believe there is a cream you put on the metal before engraving and that creates the black color.  For me, I use an air erasure for the etching then I use rub and buff for the color.

[Vitaman 27]

23 hours ago, xpaperman said:

If using a laser engraver, I believe there is a cream you put on the metal before engraving and that creates the black color.  For me, I use an air erasure for the etching then I use rub and buff for the color.

I use rub n buff after etching glass, but haven't tried it with stainless.  Do you put the rub n buff on before removing your vinyl masking?

[xpaperman 719]

1 hour ago, Vitaman said:

I use rub n buff after etching glass, but haven't tried it with stainless.  Do you put the rub n buff on before removing your vinyl masking?

Yes!  It is SO much easier!  Buff it on before you remove the stencil.  I let it sit for about 10 minutes then peel and wash by hand.  I also have done a two par process that looks awesome if used in the right situation.  For example I was doing initials for a guy who was a "3rd" of the same name in the family.  I did a (little bit larger) roman numeral 3 in etch.  Took off the stencil and left natural then put the next mask )with his initials) over the 3.  Then colored the initials and removed and cleaned.  The results where black initials with the roman 3 in the background left natural.  Came out nice!