Assembling a second-hand zinc flame spray setup?

[Gasket]

Hi everyone. My first post here.

I am based in the U.K. and am currently building my new workshop. I am not an industrial user but rather to restore cars for clients and an enormously interested in buying a zinc spray setup.

We will now have a dedicated media blasting booth (made from a converted shipping container with extraction and mesh doors), with a reasonably large compressor (40CFM) and we currently use oxy-acetylene in the workshop.

There is another restoration business in the country (who work in a different field) who I greatly admire and they use zinc flame spray with some sort of Metco gun and this is the system I would like to emulate.

However my budget is limited. I did call metallisation for a quote on a new setup and was staggered at the cost (5-figures).

Could anyone tell me the model of gun as used in the video clip below at around 7-minutes 8-seconds in? From google images I’m guessing it’s a Metco 12E. Having a similar setup here would significantly improve the quality of our builds.



Any advice on ways in which the parts needed to assemble such a kit can be sourced and refurbished inexpensively would be very welcome.

We are very small scale (mainly myself with some ad-hoc help) and in the past we have outsourced zinc spray - but this is time consuming and inconvenient. Not to mention costly as it is a long drive to the nearest place that can do the work so they have to reblast the components before coating.

Really appreciate any help.

[Lemster68]

Hello.
The images that I saw on Google do seem to match for the 12E. That is kind of old, parts could be difficult to find and drive up the cost. What about a 6P II? Parts for it should be readily had.

[retropower]

Hi Gasket!

Nat (Director of Retropower ltd) here!

Glad to see someone else joining in the metal spraying fun club!

I use a Metco 11E gun. I was lucky in buying a brand new unused 11E gun from 1989 still in its original box, back in 2014. Metco still do a lot of the parts, although they are a bit of a pain as they have to come from the states usually, and are stupidly expensive (over £100 for a nozzle, as an idea)

I spray mainly zinc wire, though I have sprayed aluminium as well, both 1/8" wires, both with propane through a 11E 7-15 nozzle.

I have literally ordered a nozzle today, and a set of gas valve o rings as spares as mine are originals from 1989 and i'm getting concerned they may be a bit old. I stripped the gun and rebuilt it when i first got it as a check over, and ive just given it another strip and clean and check, but apart from that its been pretty solid.

TBH with the price of the o-rings im sorely tempted to try viton ones in it but the originals are weirdly hard and quite specific i think!

Anyway, good luck with things and keep us posted, if you need to know anything else you can drop us an email we dont bite!

cheers

Nat

[retropower]

Hi Gasket!

Nat (Director of Retropower ltd) here!

Glad to see someone else joining in the metal spraying fun club!

I use a Metco 11E gun. I was lucky in buying a brand new unused 11E gun from 1989 still in its original box, back in 2014. Metco still do a lot of the parts, although they are a bit of a pain as they have to come from the states usually, and are stupidly expensive (over £100 for a nozzle, as an idea)

I spray mainly zinc wire, though I have sprayed aluminium as well, both 1/8" wires, both with propane through a 11E 7-15 nozzle.

I have literally ordered a nozzle today, and a set of gas valve o rings as spares as mine are originals from 1989 and i'm getting concerned they may be a bit old. I stripped the gun and rebuilt it when i first got it as a check over, and ive just given it another strip and clean and check, but apart from that its been pretty solid.

TBH with the price of the o-rings im sorely tempted to try viton ones in it but the originals are weirdly hard and quite specific i think!

For metco spares in the uk, speak to Karen Underwood at Oerlikon Metco Uk ltd in milton keynes.

Anyway, good luck with things and keep us posted, if you need to know anything else you can drop us an email we dont bite!

PS PS just read your post properly......given that this was a year ago you will probably know this yourself  now, but just noticed your mention of blasting and 40cfm.....you'll need a lot more than that for bodyshell blasting in a reasonable timescale. we use what would be regarded as a small blasting compressor and that is 180cfm, 50hp diesel driven. As I say, prob been and gone now in terms of learning and experience, but thought I'd mention it!

cheers

Nat

[Lemster68]

That is very, very nice of you retropower to share that information. The OP has not been back since April. Anyway, if they get back on here or anyone who has a similar interest, make sure that you use all the necessary PPE and precautions against inhaling the fumes from Zinc, as this will cause metal fume fever and can be fatal.

[Gasket]

Hi Nat!

Gareth (Gasket), the OP here (don't worry Lemster, I'm still keeping an eye on the forum).

Lovely to hear from you - the alert actually popped up while I was watching episode 163, was a freaky coincidence! After watching over 100 hours of the uncut channel, ever since episode 1 (drawn in originally by Gordon's Escort, 6-years ago now) it's strange to be able to be able to say 'hello' but great to have the chance to say thank you to yourself and Cal for posting so much amazing content. The level of thought that goes into each of your builds is truly staggering. Course, after so much time I do feel programmed to believe every conversation in polite society should be started with a mug of Roundstone in hand


I build cars myself (Land Rovers and Range Rovers mainly but looking to track over into pre '87 BMWs) with a similar obsession to detail. We've nearly crossed paths over on the LR4x4 forum in the past. I'm currently working on an interesting RRC: I have an exceptionally late LHD 1993 2-door TDi from Portugal that is being married to a 1993 RHD V8 in parallel to a nut and bolt restoration to make the ultimate, final edition 2-door. I just need yourself and Stu to neglect Churchill for a bit to focus on your own RRCs so that you can inspire me to LS3 it  - I've been working on a very rare cross-bolted 3.5L RV8 for it up until now (reliability over the modest power gains in the larger capacity units).

We're finally breaking ground on the new workshop build after Christmas (a series of contractor let downs delayed it until now) - not massive at 100m2 - but effectively a miniature pro-spec restoration shop on our property (lift, air, mill, lathe, TIG, MIG & Spot), so no rates to worry about and ideal for one customer and one private project at a time. The plan is to showcase the two builds (RRC and a patina'd SIIA) I have in progress at the moment in the magazines and to try and drum up enough interest from them to win a single big commission per year rather than trying to do odd car jobs around work. I work in engineering project management for the majority of the time and am looking to reduce hours while I build up the shop side and to run project consultancy in parallel to the workshop. I mention this as some of the videos you've done (like on the Basecamp/Xero combination) have been great from a startup perspective too.

I didn't mention in my old post, but effectively the blast area is just used for medium sized things that don't fit in the cabinet (which in itself is a modified cheap-o unit with a metering valve and the suite of YouTube mods becoming quite effective), so things like axle casings and bulkheads. It's also handy for re-blasting things with surface rust. For anything bigger, like a body shell - I'd absolutely agree with you - my 40CFM unit wouldn't touch it in a sensible timeframe - I've considered an old road compressor too but my Mrs would kill me. For chassis I tend to acid dip at a place up in Preston (they get hot dip galv after so less worries about future paint damage) but I'll certainly need to outsource for blasting the shells of the RRC and BMW projects.


So, aside from the info on the Metco gun setup (which is a wonderful insight and gives me a good eBay search point to assemble a kit) - sincere thanks for sharing your work over these last few years. The builds are amazing and the knowledge I've gained on previously unknown processes is invaluable but the community you've built up in and around the workshop is a bit special - what a dream of a job your guys have.

Gareth.

[MarkDattilo]

Any update?