Harbor Freight vs Eastwood - Powder Coating Systems Compared

Good morning everyone, I'm here from Redline. I've had a lot of success here lately with some of the

powder

coating

videos I've done with a lot of views and recently someone commented on one of my videos and said, why not? You contrast the Eastwood cargo

powder

coating

system with the port one and I thought you know what is actually a really good idea so yesterday on the way home from work I stopped and picked up the coating system at port cargo dust. I also picked up his black. like the white powder they offer in the store and the purpose of this video today is to contrast it and see how it works with the Eastwood kit.

I've had the Eastwood dual voltage kit here for several months. I have used it. Several times I am quite familiar with it. I also have some of their powders in several different shades that they offer and the purpose of this video is that we're going to try to figure out what the best system is. I hope to learn today, as I try to contrast the Eastwood kit with the port loading kit, whether the port loading kit works better than the Eastwood kit, and let me explain what I meant by that a couple of months ago. I covered this wall hanging paper towel rack that was in my garage.

I used the Eastwood kit and noticed something a little funny. If you notice that you take a look in here and look really closely, you can see where two pieces are. sheet metal joint and it leaves an open space and it's a small space, but still, when I was powder coating it using the Eastwood kit, I noticed that the powder didn't really want to go up into those nooks and crannies. It worked fine as long as you were trying to apply a coat of powder paint to something that was as large an open area as this one here, but when it came time to get up in corners and get up between things, it wasn't so hot that it left some heat. raw bare steel and I'm curious if the port shipping kit does the same thing.

Full disclosure. Neither of these companies, Port Transportation nor Eastwood Company, sponsor my YouTube channel. I contacted the folks at Eastwood Company and asked them to sponsor the project, redline my 67 nova build to send me some of their products that I would use in the build and review their products that they rejected and as a result I just want to make sure that everyone know none of these companies are in my pocket they gave me nothing everything you're about to see is 100 what I believe so I don't care at all if you know the product is shit or a solid team , I'm gonna tell you.

You know how it's really good? So first inspection. I just opened my port charging kit for the first time and I'm already noticing some differences. The first of these is that you control your power with the Eastwood pistol here using a thumb-operated switch, while in the port charging system you are given a foot pedal. I could see that being quite useful because you could operate it with your foot and then use your other hand to sit there and spin the piece and things of that nature. I have a feeling it will be useful. I also noticed that port shipping gives you several different diffusers, three sizes in total, as well as an extra fuse.

You can see there which is the diffuser. The diffuser is this small piece at the end of the electrode. and basically what it does is determine whether or not the powder comes out in a straight line or in a big puff, obviously a big diffuser is going to give you a big puff, remove the diffuser completely and you're going to get a straighter line of powder with the Eastwood system, they only offer one size of diffuser that comes with it. In fact, I prefer to use it without any diffuser and just let it come out in a straight line where I have more control.

I have also noticed that with the Eastwood system the magazine goes on the bottom of the gun, with the port loading system it goes on the top of the gun, does that matter? I don't know the other thing I've noticed. is that the port loading system comes with a pressure regulator right here strapped to the gun from day one. I had to add one of those to my eastern wood gun, that's really important because if you don't have a pressure regulator you only have a hundred. and some psi goes right into your gun you will blow the reservoir off the bottom of the gun you must have a pressure regulator so those are my first thoughts upon noticing the differences between the two so I just learned something here about my little port loading pistol.

The regulator doesn't work so well. Look what happens here when I plug it into the air for the first time, like I did a moment ago. Too much air flow. I can turn it off. and I get a little bit of airflow in there, I hope, but turn it all the way, turn it just a little bit, there's too much airflow coming out of this gun, it's probably not a very good regulator for this thing when you're spraying the powder you want. Kind of a poof that comes out of the end of the gun and, you know, creates a nice, easy cloud that falls and draws into the part.

This is not one of those cases where you want to shoot, you know, like a water hose, this is not. more is better, you want a little airflow. This regulator, I can tell you right now, is not impressive. If I were going to use this gun and keep it, I would probably replace it with a quality regulator, and you know. I'm going to go ahead and use it anyway because we're testing the port loading gun, but in my opinion the regulator is complete crap, so to start I made a couple of pieces of sheet metal here, uh, I just cut a bit of sheet metal using my sheer I put a couple of breaks in there using my break and then used my hole punch to give me some holes to hang the pieces so I could have two different types of welds, an edge weld and then a spot weld like the yours.

I can see right there and now that I have them like this, it's important to mention that I sanded these pieces individually so that they fit nicely and clean in all the little areas like right there and now I'm I'm going to go ahead and sand them down once. one more time to clean the entire piece well. I'm done making my pieces. I've given myself some small, hard spots for dust to get in, you'll see that here. Typically, within a minute, I simply take these parts out of the sandblasting machine and give them a coat of powder paint.

I usually don't like to clean them with a cloth because when the pieces come out of the sandblasting machine they have a rough, lint texture. Your cloth likes to stick to the part, so this time I'm going to try spraying the last bit of oil that may be on this part with just a little bit of carburetor cleaner. You're supposed to get better results when you preheat the piece, so there's that. exactly what I'm doing, I've got it there and bare steel and getting it nice and hot, okay here we go, first impressions, first time with the port loading gun, let's see if we can get our airflow right, oh my god, trying to get a little bit of this stuff out and it's hard, okay let's try it anyway, I can see it sticking to the part, there's too much dust coming out, too much shit, this regulator is rubbish, I think it's just I'm going to use it. the pedal here my manual control I'm trying to step on the accelerator here because it's getting so much dust, so much dust that I can already see it going unnoticed because the piece is hot, let's put it in the oven, okay, first impressions. on that port charging system it worked, it put up too much dust, that regulator is absolute garbage just as I thought, if I use that thing again here to do another test today, I will change that thing, I won't try it again.

It's just let's say one moment you know you went to an airbrush store and you were going to get a t-shirt made and instead of the guy pulling out the little gun that comes out, instead he pulls out like an industrial house painter that he bought at Lowe's. You know, I'm going to do the side of your house, that's pretty much what it was, look at how much dust there is all over the floor, I turn on the air conditioning here to try to get the cloud out of the room, hopefully, will be absorbed. My filters are there so I have the part in the oven at 400 degrees and here in just a minute we'll see how it looks good so full disclosure I may have screwed it up a little bit I realized after I got my part . in my oven, look at this, my alligator clip, dad never plugged it in, so all the electrostatic charge, you know, that attracts the dust to the piece, apparently never happened, however, here's the funny thing, the dust It really stuck to the piece. alright, I've powder coated a decent amount of pieces and know what it looks like when it sticks and it stuck.

I have a feeling that it was because I preheated the piece, the piece was at 400 degrees, so I think as soon as the powder touched the piece, it probably melted instantly and stuck to it and I say this because the steel piece of the that I used to hang the part was not sandblasted, not sprayed with carburetor cleaner and was not preheated. and you realize that, you know, it didn't really stick to it, obviously, it certainly didn't melt, so it seems really strange to me that he avoided the process of electrostatically charging the particles, uh, by just preheating it, so what?

What does help me is that it makes me understand the importance of preheating, so I'm going to wait to see what the piece looks like when it comes out of the oven and then from there I'll make a determination if I'm going to do it. Whether this test is repeated or not, we will see clearly by taking a look at the first part that came out of the port's loading system. It just came out of the oven and to be honest with you, it doesn't look bad now, granted. It's not a shimmery finishing powder, it's a matte powder, so you certainly can't judge it based on its shine.

The only thing I notice is that the powder seems to be softer in some spots and in others, you know it. it has kind of a rough texture to it, you can see it right on the other side, you can see it again in this back left corner and also right up there, so it looks good, I wouldn't call it professional grade, but it's not bad, so I have a little test here that I want to try with this port loading system. Part of the way you know how to gauge the effectiveness of a powder coating system is to try to apply a top coat, you know? you're making candy that will require two coats of color, if you're making a lot of other types of powders you have to have a clear coat on top or sometimes people just make clear because they want it to be that way you know. more durable, so I'm going to try to apply a second coat over this part here.

This time I'll use a real regulator which will hopefully reduce our spray to something that's manageable. I will change it. the color from port charge black to port charge white so we can see exactly how well it sticks obviously this time I'm going to put my alligator clamp in place I'm going to preheat the piece again so when I start shooting , it will come straight out of the oven and we'll see what we have. Okay, let's try some white on black and see what happens. Okay, we've got our white part there. We've put white on black, so if not.

I'm not covering it, I'm sure you should be able to watch it at 400 for half an hour, okay here we go, first impressions of the part done with the port charging kit, this thing was preheated, we did it in black and then we did white on black and there is What we got the white was a glossy finish. It looks like it didn't do a good job of getting the powder on the bottom, but I did it on the top. To be honest, it's a pretty attractive finish. I'm very happy with it, it's very consistent, nice and smooth, it's smoother than the black finish.

When I look in, I can see that I'm sure you probably have a hard time seeing that, but I can see where you know the type of dust. I struggled to get into that space, which was the purpose of making that space. This piece here worked really well going around it. Had no problem coating welds in the past with the Eastwood kit I've used. in problems where getting the powder to cover the welds was a problem and for some reason you know the powder would sometimes stick perfectly to the part and then just shine on the weld and then stick again here and I haven't been so bad I'm sure why, but this one didn't seem to have that problem at all.

I'm not sure if the dust didn't stick so well to the bottom because gravity was helping me do the work here, I suspect it, but I don't know. Overall, not bad. Now I'm going to try my Eastwood kit. I have my dual voltage set as high as possible. Let's see how it works to be able to do it. You'll immediately notice that it's a much more controlled current or cloud, so to speak, than what I had with the port charging system, just completely different in that sense. I'm having a really hard time getting it to flow in that corner, so I'm going to get my diffuser out here, let's see if that helps us, oh yeah, yeah, much more successful in trying to get the powder to flow in those crevices, there's a set of Completely different ball in terms of powder flow, much more professional. give us a better finished product I don't know, let's put it in the oven and see how it does, our Eastwood part came out really great, everything covered super well, I just took it straight out of the oven.

It's already baking and while it's hot. I'm going to go ahead and apply a top coat.red and let's see how it works. Putting one layer on top of another with this wood system again. I almost forgot to hook my alligator clip too much. air flow there, okay, I kept having to adjust the air and through my regulator, but I finally got the flow right. I got the piece well coated. I'm not too sure about the underside. I did everything I could to get as much dust at the bottom. possible, especially after seeing what happened to the port's charging system, so let's put it in the oven.

I'm going to go ahead and check and make sure my pieces are heating up nicely in my oven. 425 384 looks like Well, I want to show you something while I wait for my pieces to cure. One of the things I noticed about the Port Charging kit that I really prefer over the Eastwood kit is the length of the cables. Look at how the port loading kit works. You have about three feet more wire than the Eastwood kit, you wouldn't believe it, but those three feet actually make a pretty big difference because when you try to separate them in circles, especially if it's a good sized part and you're pulling on them. cables and they're pulling up and they're trying to collide with your part and things of that nature having an extra length cable makes a pretty big difference, you wouldn't believe it, but it's a kudos to host charge for an extra length cable. thanks moment of truth this is Eastwood's part after applying red on black let's see how it looks oh wow it looks fantastic professional quality all day okay so my part has cooled down let's cut our cables and let's just take a look at what We have here our double coated piece from the Eastwood company, the cables adhered pretty well, no wonder.

Wow, the finish is as professional as it could be. It's so soft that it has a little bit of rubbish on it. Here they appear to be just a few black flecks, but I think they landed on the piece of steel that was holding this, so I don't hold it against it, it just makes all the welds and everything show. Alright, let's take a look inside this channel here and I know it's hard for you to see, but I can see that the dust came into this channel better than the cargo part of the port, certainly very smooth.

I don't see any places where the dust hasn't gotten in, uh, it just looks really good, when comparing my Eastwood part to my port cargo part, there is no doubt that the Eastwood dust is a brighter and smoother powder than the port cargo dust, uh. That's as far as I can see, you guys may not be able to see it very well, but I can look at it and see what kind of durability we have of these things. Okay, I'm pressing pretty hard with that screwdriver and it's not doing much, okay, let's check this part about the same thing, to be honest, I think the white thing on the port loading material is probably coming off a little easier, yeah, let's see whether a wire brush does anything or not. the wire brush scratched them both pretty well, you know, I think my screwdriver test I think the Eastwood powder was probably a little better than the port charging powder in terms of durability, but we're really splitting hairs Here if I'm being totally honest, there is no doubt that the Eastwood dust in my eyes is superior to the

harbor

freight

dust.

It's nothing drastic, but I mean it's measurable and I can see it well in one of the first videos I made. I tried the Eastwood system. I made it on cold pieces that were not preheated like this one was not. I had my alligator clip attached and found that in the Eastwood system the dust was attracted to the piece quite well and since I forgot to clip it before. I lifted the alligator clamp on the float charging system. I decided to go ahead and make another random piece to give the port loading system its due diligence, so I have a clean piece here, I covered it up, let's see what happens if Being totally honest, I removed the diffuser from my port loading gun.

I really prefer these things without them. The port loading gun covered the piece quite well. I was very happy that having the correct airflow makes all the difference in the world. and it just makes the powder come out a lot better, but the coating looks good, let's cook it and see what we have. I shot some white using my port loading gun and now I'm using my infrared heat lamp to cure the part. I always want to know in these videos where I got this infrared heat lamp. Just go to eBay. Do a search for infrared paint heat lamp.

There are a lot of these things there. Let's check the heat on our port charging part and make sure We're getting enough heat on this thing 336 340 329 345. Not bad, I want to take a minute to try out some of the settings on our port charging gun, down here we have a regulating valve that we can turn. that will change the amount of powder they say comes out of the gun, let's see what it does right, I'm going to close it by turning it quite a bit counterclockwise, it looks pretty good, okay, let's open it up a lot Now, turning it counterclockwise Honestly, I don't notice much difference between the two.

Well, I have my largest diffuser installed on the loading barrel end of the port. Let's see what it does. It's a big open trail of gunpowder that seems to work. pretty good now I installed our medium sized diffuser let's see what we have maybe a little narrower but nothing huge and lastly I have my smallest diffuser which makes it definitely a narrower path as I get smaller on my diffuser, no doubt about that, so I have my part here that I did with the port charge system using port charge powder and I don't know if you guys can see this.

It's not a super uniform finish. you'll see it didn't cover very well, it's not very thick on the piece even though I sprayed a metric ton of powder on this thing trying to make sure it was really thick, also worth noting that you know I had trouble getting the white on the bottom of this part here and cover that black, however, when I did it with the Eastwood powder Eastwood system, it covered the bottom extremely well, built up very thick and turned into this beautiful glossy finish, so at the end of the Today there is no doubt that I prefer the Eastwood system, their powders seem to be a little better.

I found it easier to control the output flow of his gun. Sometimes I felt that the port's charging system was not stable. broadcast was like a pop-up, you know, kind of a flow, so to speak, so I was happier with the coverage on the Eastwood system, it definitely worked better trying to put one layer on top of another, that's not to say that There would be things I didn't like about the port transportation system. I like longer cables. I like having extra diffusers. That's great, but at the end of the day, going from 70 to 115 dollars, in my opinion, is 45. dollars well spent, I hope you enjoy these videos and find them useful.

It's a lot of work to come here in the store and spend all day filming this stuff, so I hope you all appreciate it if you want to make sure you don't get lost. videos of mine, make sure to click the subscribe button and turn on notifications so that when I post a new video you don't miss it. I would also ask you as a favor to click the thumbs up and down buttons that allow you to access YouTube. Know that this is a quality video and to give you better rankings on your list, so that's today's review.

Eastwood Winds I hope you all enjoyed it thanks for watching. Have a good time.