Removing powder coating ?

[ferretjuggler]

Anyone got a surefire method of removing powder coating at home ?
My '71 A65 frame has been repaired and welded in too many places now, it really needs stripping off all over.
A trip to a paint stripping specialist seems to be the recomended method, but that's two 60 mile round trips.
Anything home brewed that would work ?

[Spaceman]

Powder coating is very time consuming and messy to remove at the best of times and, in my experience, you have to remove the bulk of it using a rotary sanding disk before finishing off with a rotary wire wheel. Removing powder coating from a complete frame at home in this way is simply not worth considering.

I was in the same position with a frame that had been powder coated which I then had to repair with some welding. Just removing the coating around where I had to weld was hard enough and I therefore took it back to my powder coating to be completely stripped before a fresh finish was applied. When I got there, they were actually sceptical that the old finish could be removed easily with bead blasting but, in the end, it came off ok.

I have stripped frames at home of their original finish (not powder coated) and re-sprayed them but nothing is as durable on a frame as a powder coat finish and, usually, it is not that expensive to have done!

[chaz]

my latest project A50 has been stripped and re coated 3 times as the painters messed up, in their view it wont stand another blasting without the frame becoming too thin in places . The problem is, if its been powder coated before (possibly by a previous owner) you dont know how many times its been blasted.
just one side effect of powder coating.

[Spaceman]

Whatever you use to remove the old powder coat will also remove some of the metal from the frame. It would not be the frame tubes themselves that I would worry about but some of the brackets if these are made from thinner gauge steel especially if they've been previously weakened by rust That said, I honestly don't think that a reasonable number of bead blasting and powder coating cycles is going to cause any significant damage to the structure of the frame!

[ferretjuggler]

I've taken the frame to work with me, to weld up a few surplus holes.
I must say that the powder coat seems to burn very well from the heat.
Perhaps burning off the powder coat in some sort of industrial oven might be kinder to the frame ?
Probly not very kind to the envìronment though

[Dean Southall]

At work we used to strip painted mc frames using a big garden weed burner. Hot emough to burn the paint off but not hot enough to damage the frame or brazin. A propane/butane torch should work.

[ferretjuggler]

Thanks for that !
I do actually possess quite a large roofers type propane torch, just needs my empty propane bottle swapping for a full one.
I had actually thought about this before, but I was worried about the frame distorting due to the heat.
I suppose if I take it steady, it should be OK