Please tell me why I should or should not powdercoat my firewall. I have a load of stuff going to powder and their oven is huge and my galvanized firewall would look better painted/powdercoated than it does now.

Also, things like cabin heat boxes (the ones mounted to FW).. okay to powder?

Thanks,
Asa

I’m not saying you can because I dont know. But…why not! You have me considering it now as I do a fair bit of powder coating with a local shop. Would be easy to toss in on a batch.

The purposes of powder coating are to protect metal from corrosion and to improve its appearance. The purpose of a firewall is to protect the cabin from an engine fire. For a galvanized firewall, powder coating provides additional protection from corrosion. If the powder coating contains no volatile organic compounds, then it maintains the firewall's fire resistance but it doesn't improve it. If the powder coating contains volatile organic compounds, they can burn at lower temperatures, which compromises the firewall's ability to resist an engine fire. I would check the chemical composition of the powder coating to make sure there are no volatile organic compounds and find out what the manufacturer's published heat tolerance is.

Here's an article that explains more about powder coating: https://www.tomburn.com/case-study/5ece ... -flammable

I would also wonder if the galvanized metal would be a good candidate for powder coat. My galvanized firewall was painted with something that eventually started to peel and flake off. No idea if it was powder coat or not, just sharing my experience.

Thank you for the thoughtful replies everyone. I'll give the powder people a call and see what they say but just wanted to see if there were any aircraft specific reasons first. Galvanized is inherently not good to bond to, so painting is difficult but maybe powder is better? I'll check and see what they say.

Sounds like it will out gas and bubble so it’s a no-go. Hopefully this helps someone in the future….