I want to have the rims on my 1932 powder coated. The original color is medium cream, I talked to Steve from the Filling station and he informed me that they were not able to get the product from their vender at this time. Has anyone found the color in powder coating that is like the medium cream color.
My powder coating guy had dozens of colors but nothing close enou\gh. He had a fit when I made him order it from FS…said his colors cost about 10% of what they were charging. In the overall scheme of things most people who ever see the car will not know the difference but I am glad I did it anyway. I know that doesn't help you, sorry.
I had the same situation with the guy that is going to do my rims. I was not sure which color would be correct so I ordered the powder coating from the Filling station but was informed they cannot get the powder coating at this time
I was the original source of TFS Cream Medium powder. Bill Barker provided me with a sample and I had the color custom matched. It became clear to me that I was not the right person to be selling the powder because I could never reach enough potential buyers to make it work. I sold what I had to TFS and told Steve how to replenish when he ran out. Since then, I have probably bought back as much as I sold him. I have powder coated a few sets of Ford wheels besides the wheels for my '35 Standard Coupe. I guess I take some pleasure in knowing there are some Fords out there with "Chevy" powder on the wheels. I was also involved in matching the Brown wrinkle powder for '36-'38 truck interiors. It is available from Jim Carter and perhaps others. I'm surprised Steve is having trouble getting powder. I have attached a pic of my coupe with fresh wheels, tires, hubcaps, and trim rings.
I guess if you keep saying that it isn't available long enough, when you do get it you can charge whatever you want for it. If there is only one supplier his price, no matter how high, is the cheapest. Maybe you should tell the rest of us who the supplier is and we can contact him ourselves. I'm sure he will make some up if he gets enough requests. Tired of TFS gouging us.
Hi Mike Thanks for the sharing the powder coat information. I was going to check the ford sites for the powder coat, But now I do not have to wonder why the guy who sold it to me is grinning from ear to ear every time he sees my car. I will contact Jim Carter this week, is Cream Medium Powder the correct color name.
Powder in general is hard to get right now. My powder coater had to wait 5-6 weeks to get gloss black. It used to come stateside but he said the last stuff came out Canada.
Mike would be a much better person to comment as he is in the powder coating business. Two facts I had to learn when I was trying to find a powder matching a specific paint color are 1. Powder is sold by manufactures, distributors and formulators in larger quantities than most of us would ever use. There are a few standard colors that are available in smaller quantities. 2. Powder colors can not be changed or tinted like liquid paints. If you were to mix blue and yellow to get green powder and then apply it you would get a mottled result. Yes it would be yellow but not a consistent color across the surface. If you melt the powders and mix them together, allow to solidify and then grind to get a powder it would be consistent.
I have reached out to Mike for his assistance with acquiring the powder coating and he is working on a solution for me and anyone else that is interested in the coating.
Sherwin Williams is the supplier of the powder that has previously been available from TFS. I had it made in 2013. After advertising it in the G and D and getting few inquiries, I realized it would be better for someone like TFS to ad it to their offering, so that it could be found by more people. I made a deal with Steve to buy what I had left and told him how to get more when he needed it. He ordered one more batch and recently sold out. When he tried to reorder, he was told that it was no longer available. I checked with my SW warehouse and learned that the powder had been dropped from the availability list because of low volume of sales. This is perfectly understandable if they sold only two boxes in 7 years. I am working on getting it to be available again but it is expensive to buy special order powder in small quantities. TFS must invest $1100.00 or more and wait up to 5 years to get a return. I think this represents a substantial price increase since the powder was last produced. Any good retailer must manage inventory for a respectable return on investment. I spoke to Steve this morning and he has located a powder supplier close to him who might be able to mix powder in smaller quantities so he doesn't have so much money setting in wait for a return. Because of COVID, the supplier is shut down or at least slowed down at the present time. It is good to know that the powder will be available again, even though it might be a while before it happens. Be patient, if you can.
To address another issue which was brought up in earlier post, powder coaters buy powder every day for less than $5.00/lb. When they see a price tag of $100.00 or more for 3 lbs. of powder, it sends them into orbit. For someone outside our hobby, it might be difficult to understand how important it is to us to get a color exactly right. If the coater has never been involved in a custom color match, they might not be aware of the cost of the process. It is probably best, in these situations, to just buy the powder yourself and take it to the coater without him knowing how much it cost.
