Anyone interested in Powder Coating?

Hey! So just some advice for ya. I would definitely ask the powder coater to mask the bearing seat area. Powder is easily thick enough to throw off the tolerances on the bearing seat. The response area doesn’t really need to be masked off, if a little gets in there it’s fine. You can use scrap bearings to mask the bearing seat. Some powder will cover the lip of the bearing seat, but as long as the post is kept clean then the bearing will still fit.
Depending on the anodizing on your yoyo, you may not need to request the finish to be blasted off. For example, a clear coat anodize can just be cleaned and powder coated over. A dark color may need to be stripped off to prevent the color from being seen through the powder coat. The powder coater should know this already. The bearing seat should be left untouched and not stripped. Stripping the anodize from the bearing seat can throw off tolerances.
Expect some vibe from the coating. I used to promise a smooth finished product, which I don’t anymore because it is exhausting stripping the coating and re-doing it. Yoyos are fairly high precision toys, powder coating is not so high precision. Some vibe from the coating is pretty normal.
Hope it works out for ya! Be sure to post some pics of the throws after!

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