I´ve been talking this over with a professional painter who does the occational paint job on our airfield. After talking to him it dawned on me that powder coating and powder coating is not the same thing:eek:

Basically there are two types of processes going around. These are named thermosets and thermoplastics (hope I spell this right). He maintains that for a fuselage frame, thermosets are absolutly perfect. He says thermosets have some of the same qualities as normal paint, including the showing up of rust through the coat. They would, however, not show up cracks in the structure very well.

Thermoplastics, don´t get anywhere near them for an aircraft application. It will form a layer of, basically, plastic, that will hide everything underneath.

This is just his professional view. I´m sure others have other views. I have not enough knowledge to say what is correct. BUT, if I had a bare frame I´d powder coat with the thermoset process. No questions asked!