Alan Frisbie wrote:
I am getting ready to weld up a fence for my home and
am considering powder coating it.

Thanks for all the great replies to my questions! Now that
I understand the issues a bit more, I'm beginning to reconsider
my decision to powder coat. As I now understand it, powder
coating is great as long as there is no way rust can get
under it. This means no chipping or cracking.

For an outdoor fence, that may be impossible over the long
run. Gates get slammed, garden tools fall against them,
lawn mowers or string trimmers fling pebbles, etc. I'm
going to take a fresh look at painting, especially some
of the suggestions you guys made.

That Sci-Coat stuff looks interesting, but I want to see
what it looks like first. Likewise the idea of using truck
bed liner coating.

Outdoors sure is a severe environment! Nothing seems to
stand up very well. I got some of those chrome plated wire
shelf units for my wife to keep her collection of small cacti
on. I figured that since chrome plated car bumpers seemed
to last forever that the shelves would last a long time.
Wrong! Only four years later they are all covered with a
light coating of rust.

Even the "heavy duty" silver tarps can't last more than one
year in the southern California sun. I wrapped a piece of
equipment in one, and one year later the silver coating is
flaking off and the underlying plastic is going fast. Mother
Nature is about as agressive as they come!

Thanks!
Alan