Martin Morgan wrote:

For what it's worth, my small experience with powder coating.
(Maybe slightly off topic? Oh well...)

1. Saw a Cessna 172 engine mount that had seriously rusted under it's powder
coat before it was spotted. And I mean it's a wonder that it held up the
engine at all. Mind you This plane has been around a looong time, left
outside and wouldn't have had a keen builder to regularly check it over.

2. I built a Rans Chaos 6 years ago and thought that the factory powder
coated fuselage would be a good idea. When I received it I had to (very)
carefully inspect every inch of tube to find all the places that had started
to rust under the coating. Considering the short time between it's
manufacture and it arriving in Australia there was a remarkable amount of
damage.
Mind you, if  Randy had bothered to clean up the metal before it was coated
it wouldn't have been such a problem.

As far as hiding a crack, I have no idea. But it will stretch a fair way
before breaking... I don't think it's a real problem for engine mounts if
they are regularly inspected with this in mind. But for those building steel
fuselages I highly recommend not powder coating due to the difficulty in
properly inspecting the average fuse.

 
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