I have the option of finishing the frame on my '68 with either POR-15 or sending it to a shop to get it sandblasted & powdercoated. The shop quoted me $400 for the job (actually, this was a few weeks ago & I don't remember exactly, but I know that it wasn't any higher.) I would have to take the frame completely apart for this, but since it needs new fuel/brake lines and a complete suspension rebuild anyway, it's no big deal.

I'm trying to decide between either the POR or the powder coat. The POR is obviously cheaper, but the powder coating would save me at least a week's worth of work (especially since the body requires even more work than the frame & I'll be working on it concurrently.) Any differences/comparisons between the two finishes would really help with my decision, but unfortunately, my knowledge of the two finishes is limited. All I know is that they're fairly permanent & rust won't be making a return visit. Any thoughts? They'd be greatly appreciated.

I had my 67 frame powdercoated. Wasn't as nice as I wanted. The advantage was you shoot the powdercoat in the small areas that you normally can't paint. I decided and took por 15 and went over my frame with it. I liked it a lot better. Cheaper and time consuming, but worth it.

Being that you are as close to Atlanta as I am, I would reccommend a place called Unpaint (404) 755-3329 It is near downtown, I think it is off Murphy ave. They will chemically stip your frame, this gets all the rust up inside the rails, not just outside. They then throughly wash the frame and "pickle" it for its return home. I purchased an undercoat sprayer from Eastwood to coat the inside of the frame rails, then sprayed the outside, all with Chassis Black from Eastwood. Worked great, also did the same thing with my dads 66 vette frame. The stip was about 400 and gives you a much more sound restoration than just sandblasing and painting the outside......IMHO

galvanization.

Between your 2 choices I would powdercoat it. If you consider your time, you really cant even paint it for less. To do a good job of painting I would want it sandblasted anyway. I dont know for sure if POR is available in flat black. That would be the color I would want/have on mine. POR from the very few I have seen seem to be to glossy.

I did my frame by hand (sanded, ground, prepped) then done in POR-15. it hasn't chipped hardly at all, considering how much the underside of the car with regular paint has chipped, but....
If what I am thinking is possible, and you have the $$, I would have had the frame dipped in acid inside & out, had the pit marks smoothed with epoxy (if possible), then powdercoated.
The POR-15 (applied by brush, by myself, who'd only painted like a door of a house before), worked out pretty well.
If you are striving for perfection & ease of cleanliness (all my powdercoat parts clean up real easy, POR tends to collect dust-- in my experience), then I say acid dip & powder coat.
The guy that did my interior who is a pro-restoration guy in my state said he was honestly surprised how well the POR came out on the frame. And he's done alot of cars.
My only concern is that the frame will rust from the inside out, but, I'll probably be dead by then...
I used the POR semi-gloss. It says semi, but its so close to a flat its hard to tell. they might have a flat black out (I recall my semi-gloss was more $$ than the regular stuff) since I bought my POR (a number of years ago) Also, don't let the stuff freeze before drying or it becomes a total disaster!

Matt

The place that is doing it is located in Cumming, I can't remember their name (I'm in Marietta right now for college.....finals week, their card is with the Chevelle in Dawson County,) but they do have a website. They do sandblasting, powdercoating, cryogenic processing, etc. I might need to take my brake rotors by there for the cryogenics.

Anyway, I was told that they'd be able to blast & powdercoat inside the frame, even though I'd like to know how they'd be able to do this. Acid dipping was what I originally wanted, but I've heard that it weakens the metal. :(

BTW, I can sandblast the frame by myself. My father is a paint/body man and I have everything necessary in order to do so. In fact, I am sandblasting many of the body parts over Christmas break. It's just that not having to also sandblast a frame would save a lot of time. I could get the shop to just blast the frame, they aren't required to do both jobs.

This is more or less a comparison of POR and powdercoating (and possibly galvanization. smile.gif ) If I went with the POR, I'd have to purchase whatever tool is necessary to coat the inside of the frame with it. I will probably be using POR on the bottom of the body, though.

A sand blasting Co here is set up to blast the inside of small dia pipe. For oil industry. They should be able to a frame also.

http://img54.exs.cx/img54/9991/tankrear5wp.jpg

ALL the black you see, is POR

http://img54.exs.cx/img54/4574/velfrnt1ph.jpg

I did the firewall and the underbody, and the frame with 4 Quarts. Even the chevy Orange is POR. You will love that stuff, very nice results for me! Me and my brother did all this ourselves, well, my brother mostly hehehe!

I was looking through POR's catalog earlier today, and it seemed that the POR-15 itself had to be applied with a brush. :( Is there any way to spray the stuff? Because I don't know how I'm going to get it inside the frame if it has to be brushed on. My Dad also feels that brushed-on finishes don't look as good as sprayed-on, but this is the frame I'm talking about. It's not even going to be visible by conventional means save for the portion in the engine compartment. I'm far more interested in rust-proofing it forever than I am it looking pretty (although that's always a plus :D .)

On a side note, the Chrome Paint that POR sells does look really cool, though. I might consider looking into where that can be used. :cool:

From what I've read on this board, even when brushed on, the brush marks level out to a smooth finish. I believe it can be sprayed, but respritory equipment would be a must.

I did the inside of my rear frame rails on my Camaro by tying a rag on the end of an old brake line and soaking the rag in the POR. Shove that down the frame and it'll coat everthing! smile.gif

Sandblast and POR-15 the frame.

I thought the POR-15 worked very well,just coat the inside also. I like the hardness of the finish.

Isn't POR meant to be applied on rusty surfaces, though? Maybe it doesn't matter as long as the primer is used, but the catalog just makes it apparent that bare metal is not required when applying the stuff.

Regardless, the frame is still being blasted because it's already been blasted & painted once, but we did a very poor job with the sandblasting (the entire middle portion of the frame wasn't even blasted! It was just grinded with a rust-remover pad!) and the paint is just ordinary paint that is already starting to wear. I don't think that POR should be applied over painted surfaces.

I was also told that with powdercoating, all of the bolt holes in the frame would have to be "de-burred" with a grinder. Does POR require this also? Because I can only assume that it would.

POR is not as thick as powder so it wont need deburing, but even with powder its really not an issue. Now a bolt head is a different story, the first time you put a wrench on it it will take the powder off.
Leroy

Originally posted by 540cutlaSS:
Now a bolt head is a different story, the first time you put a wrench on it it will take the powder off.
Leroy This leads me to believe that POR is a more durable finish, but the frame will be completely stripped before it is applied (considering that the front & rear suspensions both need rebuilding/new bushings, it had to be done anyway,) so no bolt heads will get covered.

But if this is the case, I'm almost convinced to go with the POR. I'll still have to get a quote on the sandblasting job, but I'm sure that the majority of the $400 was the powdercoating. The cost of the sandblasting plus the cost of the POR should be cheaper.

The only thing I'm still concerned about is that I wanted to box the middle frame rail. Obviously, this will have to be done before the POR is applied (and after the sandblasting.) If I want to get POR inside of the newly-boxed frame, I could be facing a dilemma. The primary issue of the POR is getting it inside the frame even though it cannot be sprayed (to the best of my knowledge.) I know, I'm a perfectionist when it comes to rust. :cool:

Search through the pages. There have been discussions of spraying POR. If I remember correctly, some used undercoat sprays and other types. Let us all know how you make out.

After doing a search (I keep forgetting that the search button is normally a far more useful tool than the new topic button, but it requires effort, tongue.gif ) I have determined that the POR should be brushed on unless I'm painting inside the frame, and this (http://www.eastwoodcompany.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=10966&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=373&iSubCat=376&iProductID=10966) tool that 70velle_basketcase mentioned (but did not post a link too :D ) should do the job. Spraying doesn't seem to be the recommended method of applying the POR. It runs easily and if you don't wear a respirator you'll die. :eek:

Eastwood also sells quite a few rust-preventive products that have caught my interest, but they don't seem to be as popular as POR-15. I have too few opinions/reviews to justify a purchase of the stuff :( . The Heavy Duty AntiRust looks like a really good product to coat my window mechanisms with, though (they may be galvanized......better check.)

I'd still like to know more about powercoating, as I've heard very little about one's experiences with it, but I am still leaning towards the POR.

http://www.por15.com/faq.asp#HowThin
Here's a link to the POR15 FAQ. It mentions thining out the paint with their thinner to use in a sprayer.
My buddy painted his frame, floor panels, firewall, brackets, etc. with POR15 and it came out great. Like someone mentioned earlier, the brush strokes due smooth out. The biggest thing with POR15 is the prep work before you apply. He spent quite some time on prepping it, but it was well worth it.
I would recommend ordering alot of the smaller cans instead of a couple of the larger cans. You can reseal the larger cans, but if there is any POR in the groove you can forget opening it later. You can put saran wrap down before you close the lid and this helps, but it is so much easier to handle the smaller cans. It's also much easier to throw out the smaller can instead of having to deal with putting the lid back on and trying to save the rest for later.

Sorry Tanatra, but you did find the right tool. smile.gif

I have used both POR 15, and the Eastwood stuff. The POR 15 is better stuff, dont get me wrong, but it has issues. It is difficult to thin and clean up afterward, you can't spray it with out a resperator. Also, atleast when I was doing mine, (2 yrs ago) POR 15 was UV light sensative. This meant it must be painted where sunlight wouldn't hit it or it could be compromised over time.

The Eastwood stuff in comparison is much easier to deal with as it thins with easily avaliable stuff. It is more like tradional paint, so you must do more prep work than the POR15. But you can spray the stuff and get it into hard to reach areas. Honestly, how many of us really put our Chevelles into conditions where you really need the extra protection of POR over Eastwood? The closest thing to corrosion mine would see is a gentle wash from time to time. I would not think you would see any advantage unless you were driving on winter salted roads.

On the frames, I have not heard of any weaking with chemically striping metal. I am a Mechanical Engineer and I would think that I would have heard of that had it been a problem. If you think about what chemical striping does, it removes oxidation, paint and other crap. I am sure if they left it in the acid too long it could disolve metal, but this would take quite a while and a good company providing this service should know how to handle it. I would think any problem you would have from weakness in the frame after a chemical stip would be a result of the loss of already oxidized metal. If that is the case you are screwed anyway. smile.gif

Originally posted by 70velle_basketcase:
Sorry Tanatra, but you did find the right tool. smile.gif

I have used both POR 15, and the Eastwood stuff. The POR 15 is better stuff, dont get me wrong, but it has issues. It is difficult to thin and clean up afterward, you can't spray it with out a resperator. Also, atleast when I was doing mine, (2 yrs ago) POR 15 was UV light sensative. This meant it must be painted where sunlight wouldn't hit it or it could be compromised over time.

The Eastwood stuff in comparison is much easier to deal with as it thins with easily avaliable stuff. It is more like tradional paint, so you must do more prep work than the POR15. But you can spray the stuff and get it into hard to reach areas. Honestly, how many of us really put our Chevelles into conditions where you really need the extra protection of POR over Eastwood? The closest thing to corrosion mine would see is a gentle wash from time to time. I would not think you would see any advantage unless you were driving on winter salted roads.

On the frames, I have not heard of any weaking with chemically striping metal. I am a Mechanical Engineer and I would think that I would have heard of that had it been a problem. If you think about what chemical striping does, it removes oxidation, paint and other crap. I am sure if they left it in the acid too long it could disolve metal, but this would take quite a while and a good company providing this service should know how to handle it. I would think any problem you would have from weakness in the frame after a chemical stip would be a result of the loss of already oxidized metal. If that is the case you are screwed anyway. smile.gif No problem concerning the Eastwood product (I'm online way too much anyway. tongue.gif )

Thanks for the info about acid dipping, though. I stand corrected ;) . But according to the POR website and some of the topics I've read here, sandblasted metal is ideal for POR to adhere to. The metal-ready primer should still be applied too, though, only because it could only be beneficial. My father has a gallon of self-etching primer that he wants to use on both the frame and the body. This stuff has zinc in it, and can even be welded on. It should be sufficient.

I have made the decision to go with the POR, mostly for financial purposes (the holidays aren't exactly the best time to finance a restoration graemlins/beers.gif .) The body has an appointment on Monday to get sandblasted, even though it is supposed to snow here in GA tomorrow graemlins/sad.gif . Not sure how that will turn out, but the body will be PORed very soon. My birthday resolution when I turned 20 on Oct. 25 was to eliminate procrastination from my life forever. I have made substancial progress. :cool: