 What's Rock Guard Powder Coat? |
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Powder coating is the modern method of sealing steel against corrosion. It’s
been around for years and few boat trailers are “spray” painted anymore. Powder
coating equipment is expensive, often running to $250,000+ for a fully
functioning system. Some small manufacturers can’t afford the expense and often
promote galvanizing as an alternative. There is a huge difference in powder coating. Modern powder coat
installations provide a tough durable finish. However many smaller companies
have cobbled together systems. They don’t clean or prep the steel and sometimes
the furnace is nothing more than heaters blowing hot air to melt the powder. You
won’t know which you have until a year after you buy the trailer and rust starts
to appear. Textured powder coating is the most modern and most effective method. Literally only a couple of years old. It requires an expensive ($6000) spray gun. You usually need a couple, they have to be cleaned periodically. Our system sprays powder coat 9 to 11 mils thick. In our system the steel is bead blasted to remove any welding impurities. The powder is sprayed onto an electrostatically charged frame and the powder is melted in an oven at temperatures above 400 degrees for 17 minutes. |
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| Our bead blast chamber | One of our powder coat booths | One of our 400_ degree ovens | |
 How thick is 11 mil? Run your hand over the top of our trailer, you can feel the textured powder coat. A Lot can go wrong with dirty steel, thin or improperly applied powder coat  Steel was not prepped. Dirt shows through the finish. Coating is so thin that street shoes scratch the top frame.  |
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| Steel sometimes comes from the mill with imperfections. If trailer manufacturers
don’t clean the steel these imperfections work their way to the surface. We bead
blast our frames and our textured 11 mil, Rock Guard finish is thick enough to
cover imperfections. Although we exercise quality control and inspect the steel.
If there is a bad piece of steel (above-right) we don’t use it. |
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| We HATE Rust | |||
 We
were with a trailer manufacturer for several years that would not upgrade their
powder coat system. It hurt our reputation.We found a new and better supplier. We have zero tolerance for rust. Axles are vendor items for most trailer manufactures. Axle builders usually just spray paint the axles. They get scratched in transit and assembly. They seldom get touched up. Axle companies claim they’re beneath the trailer, no one will notice. But many boats are off the trailer, often six months a year, when the axles rust, you will notice. We pay extra for Aluminized axles on our brake models. An aluminized coating helps prevent corrosion. We are committed to not having rust on our trailers even the axles, and even after the warranty expires. |
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| Our Aluminum Axles | NOT OURS | ||
| WE like to say that you don’t need to know trailers, WE DO. We won’t sell a trailer with a bad finish. | |||