Less than a week after black powder coated forks were installed, they started looking like photos below although photos do seem to exaggerate the situation somewhat, however the larger white spots are definitely chips that seem to go down to the raw metal. And no I don't live on a gravel road or travel gravel roads. This was after 300 miles or so of normal road driving.

Powder coater has a good attitude and has offered to redo them. I want to stick with the black forks but not if the redo is going to look like these after only a week.

My question is are your black forks chipping like these and if not, did you go with a private powder coater or did you buy the H-D brand?

If not normal, any powder coater have any idea what might have caused this situation?

 

Hoping Joe chimes in on this..
I would think if done properly, powder coating is about as tough as it gets & is supposed to resist chipping and scratching better than about anything...interested to hear what others have to say, but something doesn't seem right with yours.

 

Looks to me like the powder wasn't cured properly, according to my powder coater guy, the coating can chip easily if the powder isn't cured long enough.

 

Is the curing that you are referring to a simple time thing? I purchased them on Oct 24th but they weren't installed until around Nov 14/15.

 

Thing about powdercoating is that it is a lot tougher and definitely more durable than paint. The pics you show are not normal wear and tear…especially after 300 miles. Only bad thing about powdercoat is that you cannot touch it up like regular paint.

Glad your powdercoater is willing to stand behind the work and fix it for you.

 

Curing time = Baking time (in the oven). Looks like they pulled the parts out of the oven before the powder was finished baking.

There are a number of steps to powder coating, pre treating the metal properly and insufficient bake times are often the problems with crappy finishes.
I send parts out for powder coating once or twice a month, over the years I've had a few instances pop up like this and the reasons I explained are what was told to me by the powder coating guy.
It's an easy enough fix. Powder coating is strong and durable and you will be happy once they are coated properly.

 

Nope. But I hunted down an HD blacked out pair for my Slim. I believe they were from the previous generation, but a heck of a lot cheaper because of that. Exactly the same forks.

 

Looks like it wasnt prepped right, it shouldnt have chipped like that.

 

I've had my powder coated legs on for about 7k miles and don't have a chip or nick yet. My front end was done by Joe, aka forum sponsor The Powder Pro. All the parts I had him do were flawless. On the other hand, my engine guard and some other parts were done by someone local. The engine guard is chipped all to hell. I plan on sending it to the Powder Pro to get redone at some point.

 

i had my black forks done by ***** shiny. they were flawless and lasted without chips for the 5,000 miles that i had them on the bike before i traded it in.....