Batch quantity painting

[whiskeymike]

I have an industrial gig making a few thousand small 3x2" brackets out of 1/4". This might become a monthly order. I need to finish them in black. I looked into powder coating, but the price so far is out of the ball park. So I'm looking at painting them. These pieces have a 1/2" hole in the center so I can hang them.

Anyone have suggestions how to handle this quantity of small parts? Finish doesn't have to be great, but I don't want it to look shoddy. Is building a tree of hooks worth while and hang a few hundred at a time? How do you paint where the hook is?

Is there a faster method?

[whiskeymike]

I found this tonight while researching. http://www.mightyhook.com Looks really interesting. I think I'll build one this weekend to try it out.

[Gamelord]

if you are doing that many, powder coating may be the best option....if you have an oven large enough. With Powder, you can "paint"40 - 50 at a time in a matter of minutes pretty easily and baking them only takes about 20 minutes max and they are ready to ship (after cooling of course). you could powder a couple hundered in a few hours. Rattle can or paint gun will take about the same time as powder to coat them but waiting for them to dry would take a couple hours each batch at minimum.

[whiskeymike]

I checked with two local companies and their quotes were $1.50 each which prices them out since I'm selling them for about $2.75-$3 a piece. Unfortunately, getting my own oven and blasting cabinet requires more shop space which I'm planning but I won't have it for another 4-5 months. I may checkout our local tech shop which has the tools needed and try it there..

I've also been looking at black oxide coating. May try that out as it seems like you could do quite a few pieces in a short period.

[_Ogre]

we have many of these hooks in various lengths and sizes; 3'' to 18'' long, thin and thick
there is a 60 ft overhead conveyor in the paint booth that we can hang parts on

one thing about using the hooks is if your using 4 foot long chains of parts and spreading them out 4 feet wide, like a curtain of small pieces
figure on enough paint to cover a 4 ft x 4 ft sheet, you will use it



you can see the conveyor on the roof in the booth with some hooks for hanging parts
15 ft into the booth and 15 ft out of the booth in a continuous loop