It does have a nice return when done right, but there is just no comparison between paint and powder coat.
Powder coating has a much nicer finish, and is extremly durable. Paint is not, powder coat is so thin and enables the details of the horns to shine through. While paint does fill in little imperfections, it also takes away from details. Its a small trade off for the benifits of powder.
I never painted a set of horns before, and I will never paint a set of horns again. Everything will be powder. Between the etching primer, and paint, I have 80 dollars in supplies, and 10 hours invested in just painting them to how you see them.
Powder for the same job would cost about 20 dollars, and take about 3-4 hours to do this job. In 10 horns I would have an extremely detailed K5. Of course with powder coat you need to be experienced, have a dedicated oven to bake it, and have the equipment to powder coat, which runs 300-900 dollars for a quality gun. Its not cost effective if you only own one horn. But for me this is insanity to ever paint again. My hat is off anyone who has, or will paint horns. That is of course doing it the right way. Not using cheap 2 dollar a can paint. Your a better man then me to do all the ones you have done or will do.
Here is some pics of it. The reason I did this horn was I wanted to create a detailed Halloween theme horn and thought painting would be faster. But I got so disgusted with the time invested I just did the orange inside. Oh well, I will do a detailed Christmas horn using powder coat.
I happy with how it turned out for being paint, but what I really enjoy is the look of using this type of Stainless Steel hardware.
Click Images for a larger view.
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To me for a common K5 the standard bolts just dont look good.
for as much as you say it sucks those sure do look good. i’m curious as to how you spray inside the bells without hurting anything though… or even just getting an even coat in there
i assume you clear coated it as well… not sure what else you did but maybe if you use some 2000 grit sand paper on the final cured clear coat, then use some light polishing compound, followed by some wax it would look shinier than hell.
Clear no. Enamel paint. I was thinking about sanding but then said screw it. Got enough time in it already. So its getting ebayed.
Another advantage with powder, powder done right never needs sanding, or polishing.
Soon as I get my oven and paint booth setup in its new location, I amy try a turkey day horn.
Oh ****, I just thought of something, if I was gonna do a Halloween horn, i should have done it in a candy corn style. Dammit, I got a bunch of horns sitting. Maybe a k3 for this?
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