4x4 Parts Shop, Colorado Springs, CO 80915

[threecol_two]Now that the body armor is complete, and P3’s outsides are where we want them, its time to take a good look at the insides of P3, which, by the way, are going to get their own overhauling as well.

However, before we get into that, we’d like to take you on a little journey. We understand that this next part isn’t really part of the buildup, but we think my readers will enjoy getting to see this next part. In Project One we showed you how we construct our sleek, yet very strong bumpers. Here we’ll show you the powder coating process as well as the science of using water to make Scout parts.

To start out, P3 will eventually end up Black and Tan. This is why the seats were built that color, we didn’t paint it before the modifications to make sure that the new paint isn’t damaged by all the mods (i.e. the off-road lights we installed a couple days ago). And since the outside is going to change color, the inside is going to change color as well. Basically the dash and door panels (blue from the factory) will be changed to black. And since the factory finish is compatible with powder coating (meaning you don’t have the strip it and then coat) we’ll just be coating the factory stuff in black hammer finish (Cardinal Color BK62).

We didn’t get a chance to picture the actual Scout parts going through the process (that would have taken about 3 hours of standing around), but we did get one of my powder coaters major customers (Some of you may recognize the performance bike shocks) getting it done.

First, the product is put on an automated line, this line slowly travels through the entire building.

Then the belt takes the parts through a large washing machine where the product is ‘pressure washed’ with cleaners, phosphoric acid, de-ionized water and several other baths. This process removes any oils left on the parts from human handling, or the machining processes the product goes through before it gets here.

Next the parts go through a pre-bake oven, this dries and cures the parts, the last step before the powder is applied.

Then the parts pass a guy with a gun. The powder gun shoots a fine mist of the proper powder onto the parts. Just prior to getting to this part, each of the product are electrically charged, the powder is also charged, but with the opposite charge (i.e. if the products are positively charged, the powder is negatively charged). Why are the charged? Simply, with the slight charge, the powder is drawn to the product and will stick to it. This electrostatic attraction ensures that every little section of the product is covered equally with the powder, giving it a good even coat. Any area that is not to be coated, is masked or plugged.

The parts then go into the final oven where the powder is melted to the parts. The moving line is speed sensitive to make sure that the parts have exactly enough time to properly bake the powder on. Just so that you know, the parts entering the oven are white, the ones leaving the oven are ‘Smoke’ which is like powder coating something with window tint.

The parts then make their way back to the loading area. And by the time the get there, they are already cool and ready to be packaged for delivery to the production plant. This facility is huge, and the line you’ve seen here takes up about 10,000 sq ft of the facility. They also have robotic coaters that can spray electronic shielding or conductive coatings onto cell phones and zip drives, heck, you can even tell the them you want a coating that allows ‘X’ amount of ohms resistance, and they can do it. Come to think of it, they even have batch ovens on the other side of the shop for special products, like the roll cage in Project 4.

Special thanks to Fred, owner of Ameritech Spray Finishing, for allowing us to photo his shop. As a side note, Ameritech was recently bought and has changed its name to Compass Industrial Coatings.

Now that you’re in the ‘Behind the scene’ mood, let me take you to another high-tech supplier of mine.

Meet Scott, owner of Precision WaterJet. When we planned out the interior of P3, we knew that we needed to ad up-to-date gauges, and lots of them. We also needed a switch panel to control all of P3’s auxiliary systems.

So we enlisted Scott, and his water jet machine, to custom make our new dash panel and switch console. The first thing to do is create a design. This is easy on paper, but a bit harder to do in a computer. Scott took our hand written design and, using a specialty CAD program, put in into plots and points that the machine could understand.

Next he uploaded the program into a huge water jet machine. This machine can cut 1-2″ metal, wood, glass, plastic, and do it all with high pressure water.

“So,” you ask, “How does it work?” The first step is to load the material of choice into the machine. In our case, we are making our panels out of 1/8″ aluminum. So Scott loaded up a 4×8 sheet of the stuff into the machine.

Then, with the program transferred to the machine, the machine starts its cutting. In case you’re wondering how water can cut through metal, just remember that this water is pressurized at over 60,000 PSI! If you look close, you’ll be able to see the pattern we’re cutting in the bubbles.

Presto! Our dash is finished!

In case you’re wondering, that ‘dirt’ you see in the water is really a special grit that is added to the water to help it cut smooth and quickly. The tennis-ball cut in half is used to keep the splashing down, put it this way, when the machine starts a cut, 60,000 PSI of water can quirt pretty high until it gets through them metal. So the tennis ball keeps that under control.

The big blessing of water jet cutting is that it doesn’t use heat to cut. Laser or plasma tables create a considerable amount of heat when cutting. Water does not, which makes sure that there is no heat war page, and why we use it to make our dash panels. Yes, its more expensive, but its the best way!

Another panel we had Scott make was a specialty gauge and switch panel for under the dash, this will house a ton of ARB-style switches and a couple extra gauges.

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