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La Pavoni grouphead and powder coating?

Postby KnowGood on Sun Feb 14, 2010 10:41 am

Can't remember what I was searching for, but came across this picture, and wondered if the powder coating could stand up to the heat? If so, would the boiler be able to as well?
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Postby shadowfax on Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:47 pm

You should ask a professional powder-coating place. You probably know that many ovens feature powdercoated metal surfaces, so it's a pretty sure bet that you can get powder coating that can take heat with no problems. That said, there are some obvious concerns to weigh:

  1. Is high-temp powder coating food safe? I assume not strictly, so you will want to be careful about protecting the inner surfaces of the group and boiler if you do this.
  2. How long is it going to last? You can see in the picture you provide that there's chipping/scraping between the lever and the sides of the cam on the group. This strikes me as a surface that will wear down and if you get chipping, that may spread over time.
  3. Finally, does powder coating stick to chrome? You may have to have the surfaces de-chromed before powder coating if you want proper adhesion. Polished chrome, even marred up, probably doesn't leave much for the coating to grip to.
I assume that powder coating a La Pavoni is a possible thing to do, but doing so properly may be rather expensive.
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Postby ziobeege_72 on Mon Feb 15, 2010 5:54 pm

I know Orphan Espresso up until very recently offered a powder coating service for the cases on the Ponte Vecchio Lusso and Creminas.

You could do alot worse than dropping them an email and get their take on what is feasable
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Postby orphanespresso on Tue Feb 16, 2010 6:57 pm

The cure temperature for standard powder coat plastics is 350 to 400F and there are some high temps coatings, for exhaust systems etc, that require a 1000F cure (beyond the range of most home coaters who, like me, use a standard kitchen oven for curing). I use an FDA coat for the inner surfaces of a Comocafe or La Peppina to prevent corrosion and it seems a good approach so far.
So, I don't think that the LP boiler or group would exceed the 400F cure for a standard coat, which is fairly economical to do. There is always the possibility of some unforseen fault, generally the result of surface prepreparation leading to failure of the surface adhesion. To get the powder to stick to the chrome you generally profile the surface with abrasion one way or another and can pretreat with chemicals for a better adhesion. Block all the ports and openings to keep the powder on the outside, mask threads and bolt holes etc.
Rough or pitted surfaces need to be either heavily preprocessed by filling with metal filler but an possibly better approach is to use textured finishes if you have a lot of pitting.
Likely the hardest part of doing such a job is deciding what color to make it.
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