Ceramic Coating?

[speedy400]

Well, my dad suggested this to me a few days ago, My mom owns a nice big kiln for her pottery and I just got done making headers for my 1950 truck, would it be a good idea to do the coating myself? Anyone know what you put on (guessing some sort of clay?...) the metal for this process?Thanks-darren

[wilkin250r]

Ceramic coatings are a bit more complex than just slapping a bit of clay on the metal. I used to apply them to aircraft engine components, so I know a bit about them.

First off, the base metal and the ceramic have different thermal expansions. So when they get hot, the metal might expand a lot, but the ceramic will only expand a little. This causes huge stresses on the ceramic, and it will cause it to crack and delaminate. So you usually need a different material between them, something with a thermal expansion somewhere in the middle, and it is often called the bond-coat. This gives a thermal buffer. Also, the bond-coat is usually very rough, to give the ceramic something to adhere to.

Also, the application is usually a thermal spray process. The ceramic comes in powder form, and it is melted then sprayed on the part to be coated. You need a tremendous heat source to melt the ceramic, it is usually a plasma-spray operation, and requires some pretty specialized equipment.

Basically, I don't think you can just do it yourself.