I joined the M60-A group buy this year and just got mine! … but unfortunately it arrived with a slight ding on the bottom. I was crossing my fingers and hoping the paint job was just weird in that one spot but after running my fingers along it I can definitely feel something catch
Rama is able to exchange for a new unit; catch is I gotta pay for shipping back to Australia from the US. Not the worst thing in the world but still kinda pricey.
While I’m debating on whether or not I ought to exchange, I remembered that there’s a guy near me that is willing to Cerakote keyboards for almost the same price as international shipping back to Australia. Though I wasn’t planning on refinishing, this is something I’m also taking into consideration now.
While I know there’s usually a sanding / bead blasting process when Cerakoting; my concern is that that wouldn’t actually fix or hide the issue so I thought to ask here : has anyone Cerakoted and/or Powder coated and/or re-anodized a board that had a similar issue(small chip(s) in the case) and had it come back basically fixed(or at least hidden)? What I’m dealing with isn’t huge from the looks of it, but since it’s pretty easy to spot and it’s enough for me to feel just by running my finger over it I have my doubts as to whether or not refinishing is the right way to go.
All in all I might just end up keeping the thing but still kind of a bummer, I seem to have the worst luck haha.
As a side note - any tips on cheap international shipping would be great too!
I have powder coated about 15 boards as of now with the service I am running. Powder coat is thicker than ano and cerakote. Depending on the applicator you go to and the powder you choose, the thickness varies. I have worked closely with the shop to get the thickness as thin as they can and so far there hasn’t been an issue with the tolerances. That being said, I have had small nicks, dings, and chips get covered up and hidden from the finish. However, a lot of that occurs with the preparation that the shop I use does. That includes sand blasting on a special PSI, hand sanding after that to take any of these blemishes, small nicks, or dings out without interfering with the design, then heating the board, and spraying.
I do not have any experience with cerakote but from what I have seen and read, it is almost as thin as anodization, thus it doesn’t do much to actually cover any dings, nicks, etc.
I do want to note though in your case it is probably cheapest to exchange the bottom and pay shipping to Australia. Re-coating will give you the option to choose any color but it will cost more.
Thanks for the info and going into some detail about the shop you use. Good to know just in case for the future.
Yea, I think I’m probably gonna end up sending it back, found something else this afternoon when I was examining things more carefully that definitely won’t get covered up. Ugh Oh well.
If you are gonna have it cerakoted or powder coated couldn’t you just fill the ding with something like bondo & then sand it flush & smooth before the coating?
I could, in this case though, I don’t know that it’s worth doing since the ding isn’t really all that large, also, it’s basically right on an edge; given that, the thought was that the prep process for refinishing might smooth things out enough to mask the damage.
Oh I got you, yeah if there is a ding on an edge that would make it more difficult to patch for sure. I know it sucks, but sending it back for a better QCed one is probably the best bet.
I have a B-stock Lunar which came with pretty significant graining along the sides. While cerakoting it definitely gave it a nice green color, it did not help with the aluminum case’s imperfections.
