I am just going to copy and paste this from the powder coat thread where I first told about it.

I was out at the local metal scrapyard yesterday picking up some metal for my mandrel bender project. It was yucky and cold but I am like a kid in a candy shop and I always have to dig through the general bullshit junk scrap just to see what is there.
In the past I have found more cool **** like turbos, a couple of GMC 8-71 blowers, NEW electric motors and pumps, and stuff you really cannot figure out why it was thrown out.
Well yesterday was a good day I am diggind and I see a small wad of oxy-acetylene hose protruding from a pile of bullshit. I figured at best it may have a couple of regulators, a mix handle and a rosebud or cutting torch hooked up.
But the gods of the scrapyard were truly smiling down upon me. I get to one end and there is a weird gun attached with two more hoses to it. I'm thinking "no fugg'n way!" Sure as **** it's a Wall Colmonoy F3 Spraywelder! At the other end was a bent up hopper and the air/powder panel with the regulator still intact!!!
I know what you are probably thinking. What the hell is a "Wall Colmonoy F3 Spraywelder" and why is Scalli so damn excited about this?
Scalli is excited because this is a spray torch for putting on flame spray coatings!!! So what is the big deal about that you ask? Ceramic is a flame spray coating!!! YEAH!!! And it cost me less than $5.00 because it was scrap!!! RAH!!!!
I already have an oxy-acetylene setup with the big tanks I just have to replace the hoses, fix the hopper (probably end up making one as this one looks hosed) clean it all up and get some ceramic powder.
This gun can be used to coat turbos, headers, side plates, intakes, etc.
I will drag it all out later and take some pics of it all before I start reconditioning it. Hell I will post a new thread in it's honor
Since we had earlier discussed the limitations of powder coating and touched on the subject of thermal spray I thought this was incredibly ironic that I end up with a setup like that. These are high even on Ebay for incomplete systems. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...;category=26261

Here are the pics before I started dismantling it. The hopper is just squashed and upon further inspection it is salvagable. As a matter of fact I broke everything down and everything except the oxy-acetylene hose is easily repairable. I did not check the air regulator because I have two new air regulators if the diaphragm is blown. I have at least 3 gauges if the pressure gauge is bad.
All the valves use standard o-rings and the only consumable part; the gun tip, is dirty but in great shape. That may be a hard part to find later on so I need to be easy on that.
Powder is expesive so I need to get some of the chapest stuff to play with. There was some powder on Ebay that did not sell at $29 for 5 lbs. so I will contact the seller and see if I can buy it.
Anyway here are the pics of this very good find at less than $5

 

wow what i find!
lucky b@$^@&#
matt

 

If I am lucky I may be able to refinish side plates with this gun instead of sending them off to the spray shop that uses the twin arc wire. (see "refinishing rotor housing thread") that hit a brick wall.

Here is a link to the powder I need to try that.
http://coatings.liquidmetal.com/appl...iques.hvof.asp

 

Wow!

 

I tore the gun down and cleaned it up in the bead blaster. I put it back together but obviously I don't have any powder to test with so I can only play with it so much I did not fix the hopper yet anyway.
I wanted to put the oxy-acetylene to it and set it to the recommended pressures shown on that panel and get a look at if it a good symetrical flame or whether or not there was a problem with the tip that I could not see.
I fired it up and adjusted it to a carbonizing flame which is also stated on the panel and it is a very clean flame.

Now I am really jazzed up to get some powder and spray something. Take a good look at what one of these look like. They vary a bit in style and the most common name it seems is "Metco". You may see one that someone that has no idea what they have and get it cheap Most of them seem to have the powder hopper on the gun itself. I am betting that is a more steady powder flow than this is.

Anyway here was the breakdown, cleanup, and fired up pics.

 

Now i find myself asking.....how da hell does scalli find all the good **** ....this my friends is wat i call an amazing find.....i think i should start looking thru the local scrappers yard from now on! u never know

 

I found an old Zenith shortwave radio last year at the scrapyard that sold for $410 on Ebay It may have cost $1.50 at the most since it was 7 cents per pound. I pulled a bunch of linear bearing and stepper motors off of a machine that was too big to trailer to the house so it took a couple of hours to yank the stuff off but all of it sold for over $1000. Do a search on Ebay for linear bearings with rails and stepper motors under completed items and see what some of that sells for. It is used in almost all CNC equipment and cost big bucks.
This sand blaster pot and gun I found out there http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=2343901470

If your have a local metal salvage I strongly suggest you make random visits and when in doubt buy it because you can always sell it back (for less money of course) but at scrap metal prices you usually arre not out much.
The transmission lift at Gotham Racing I built with a hydraulic long ram I picked up at scrap price. It works like a champ. I just welded up a roll around base and mounted a tranny cradle to it. It gets a lot of use too.
All three of my work benches and my lathe stand are from there as well as my Victor cutting torch head and now my spray torch
I don't find stuff every time I go but I usually find the steel I am needing and anything alse is just a plus.... sometimes a big plus

 

see the good thing is u know ur machinery.....if i saw that i wouldn't know wat the hell it was....but im gonna take ur advice and if i find sumtin im gonna take it anyways!

 

Yep, and go home and do word searches with as much info as you can and see what you have. Then hit Ebay and see if you can find similar items in "completed items" and see what it's worth. I nearly **** when I seen what the shortwave radio I found was selling for

 

THis is like the one I found http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=15051

 

WOW!!!! Congrats!!!!! now get out there and start making the X-y table for that!!!!

 

Haha John I've always liked the way you think
The cool thing about that idea is I could make a few different tool holders and use it for things like plasma cutting as well.
I found out something real interesting about this powder on this auction http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ory=11805&rd=1
The company that makes it was forced to share their data on this product because of an unfair trade practice suit.
It appears it was the only product that would work on aircraft engines. The most detailed information was only that it makes them run more effeciently
So as I get more info on that I will report. It is a polyester/aluminum product so I am really baffled on exactly what it does for aircraft engines and if it has any beneficial value to us.

 

everyone should hit there local junkyards and see what treasures they can bring home i know i will

 

It is probably used on the turbine blades or Nozzles meaning that they can run the engine hotter with the same amount (or less) cooling air. Thus increasing efficiency.


<edit> hang on ally and polyester ? yeh I'm not sure what they use it for either. unless its used for coating cold end blading or somthing ? <edit>

 

found it

www.sulzermetco.com


It will be used on areas where the tip of a blade will rub on another surface, to prevent damage to the blade and enable tip clearances to be smaller they can coat the stationary surface with this coating and the blade will eat into it without damaging anything making a better seal.



Mike

 

im going to the yards today!!

 

When you get rich off that just make a ckeck payable to "Scalliwag"

 

Yep, that makes sense. I just can't think of anything off hand it would be useful for yet anyways. The cold side of a turbo maybe. On the inside of the housing where the impeller gets close to.
Hell I don't know. But at $30 for 10 lbs. it will be fun to play with.
I got a price of $29.03 per lb./ 10 lb. minimum for the Armacor and they gave me some insight on the process in that I may want to make a hopper that will deliver a more steady stream of powder but that all I can do is try it and see.
They did say that I would be better suited with a twin wire system though
The place that made the gun is sending me some information on it and what it is capable of.
If I can at least ceramic coat headers, turbos, and side housings (exterior of sides, not apex area) I will be happy. I am thinking I could make enough on that to justify buying a used twin arc. I have my 3 phase generator ready.
Between powder coating, making bead rollers and solid motor mounts, and I will have my mandrel bender going by the weekend I should be able to buy some ceramic or the Armacor product shortly.
The bender is costing a bit to build but it will sure be nice. I may be selling some mandrel benders if that works. It breaks down to pieces small enough to fit in the trunk of a car the *** may be scraping the pavement though ah, but that's yet another project.

 

could you coat rotor faces?

 

That reminds me of the abradeable compressor housings on the 99spec 3rd gen turbos... those were a coating of some sort on the inside of the cold side to reduce the clearances a lot between the impeller and housing. Just a thought...

 

I think the combustion would nuke it.

 

So what does your wife think about all this? ahhaa

also why do u have a 3 phase generator. Just steel it out of your residential line, they don't monitor residential lines for leading and lagging hence they won't bill you.

 

all my wife knows is there is a whole lot of stuff in the garage that makes noise. That is all she needs to know

Digging in and tying on to another electric feed is even too ballsy for me. If it can get me killed or fined or thrown in jail I don't want any part of that
I setup a 3 phase convertor in anticipation of larger shop equipment.
This may come in real handy real soon.
I talked to another guy from Armacor and he was telling me about how he made a spray head one time out of some solid copper stock. Then he told me about how he just sent a roll of wire to GMC because they are going to try and spray the inside of some cylinder walls using a single wire method.
They have a machine for doing ID work that instead of having two wires meet in the nozzle and arc against each other, the single wire arcs against a tungsten electrode (non- consumable used in TIG welding)
So basically they can make a super small ID head for this.
This may put me back in business with my rotor housing resurfacing and I would not have to by a big twin arc. I could get away with a single 200 amp Miller Mig welder.
He said that he would not try to use the gun I just got with their product but that it should work with ceramic so that was cool.
So I will order ceramic.

 

yess...lets hope the housing resurfacing thing works out.....and we will have a cheap alternative finally

 

I am not sure how cheap. I am shoot more for long lasting and easy toch up if one ever does get marred.