hi, my team is working on trying to get some specific parts of our robot colored so that it sticks out in the crowd better.
we are having a hard time deciding how to paint the metal because we don’t want it to start pealing and looking bad as we have seen this on other robots. we have looked at a lot of options all the way from spray paint to anodizing the aluminum.
this is when I picked up one of our trophies we won this year and saw that the back piece was colored black. it seemed like it was very resistant to wear. I was wondering how and what these trophies are colored with (if the information is available) and if it would be easy/ plausible to mock.
thanks a lot!
Hi Cyber Brains,
The VEX trophies are painted using a method called powder coating. This is where a piece of metal is electrically charged and a powdered paint is sprayed onto it. After the powder has been applied, the part is then baked in an oven until the powder has melted. This results in a coating that looks good and is very durable. To the best of my knowledge, powder coating may be applied to any type of metal. There are “at home” powder coating kits available that you may be interested in.
Another type of coating that you may be interested in is anodizing. This will work on aluminum and a few other metals, but not steel. This process is a bit more complicated and requires a potentially large DC power source and an acid bath. This process actually dyes the aluminum and will not noticeably change dimensions of your part, unlike powder coating.
Hope this has helped,
Charles
thank you. that was very helpful!