Our Story on Auto Restoration

Automotive Restoration Ferguson Fabrication can provide customers assistance with the metal preparation and metal finishing of your automobile restoration project.  We offer experienced, top quality media blasting and powder coating services for all types of metal projects to the southern Oregon area. We invite Southern Oregon car clubs, motorcycle clubs, Hot Rod and Rat Rod enthusiasts, vintage car restorers,  antique auto collectors, auto customizing shops, motorcycle customizing shops, classic car restoration shops, off-road vehicle customizing and vintage restoration shops to take advantage of our media blasting and powder coating services for their projects.  Bring your metal project to us, in Grants Pass, we’re eager to help you get your steel & aluminum customizing work off the ground quickly and efficiently. What you get when choosing Ferguson Fabrication for your project! Certified Powder Coat Applicator– Our coater is certified by one of the industry’s best manufacturer’s of custom powders, Prismatic Powders (NIC Industries, Inc).  He has a fresh outlook, great vision and patience for the challenges that some projects may require.  He strives for a consistent, even coatings for the best uniform coverage, accurate cure times, accurate masking and thorough metal preparation for ultimate powder coat adhesion. Dependability–   Careful handling and preparation of your restoration project from start to finish. Thorough media blasting, with a fast cutting media to save on blasting time, saving you money.   We use 30-40 and 100 grit garnet.  We also take care to provide proper masking of parts, threads and surfaces and plugging threaded holes.  Additional care in ensuring your parts are all accounted for, taking time to package parts after powder coating is complete.  We have an enclosed media blast booth, large enough for most vehicle chassis and bodies. Quality Powder Coating Equipment–   A state of the art 20’ convection oven, ensuring the heat is exchanged evenly for consistent, accurate curing of the powder coating onto the product. Convenience–  Blasting and powder coating done in one location.  We also have a small burn-off oven used for burning off paint or powder coated surfaces on steel wheels, most motorcycle and quad frames, and smaller steel parts and components.  This greatly reduces the amount of time to blast off previously finished parts. Experience–  We have experience powder coating vehicle restoration projects.   We can powder coat suspension components, engine parts, transmission cases, rear end housings, vehicle chassis, wheels, body panels and more.  We also have experience coating custom motorcycle frames, sub-frames, and their smaller parts for example handle bars, springs, shields, side covers, fork legs, crash bars and motorcycle wheels.  We’ve coated full race car & sand rail chassis and many quad frames with gorgeous metallic and transparent powder coats. We are fully experienced in the application of custom powder coat finishes, two coat processes, transparent colors, textured powders etc.. Additional Services–  We have a full metal fabrication facility available as well.  If your chassis has metal repair, additional sanding & holes filled, that needs to be completed prior to coating, if you help with a few holes in the body panels we can fill most of them, if you need a filler sheet cut or placed, corroded pieces removed, etc. we can take care of those needs as well.  We’re not an auto body repair shop, body fillers and such would need to be done by elsewhere, but we do offer experienced fabrication skills.  We have also done chassis lowering and customizing, narrowing of axle housings, installed front end clips, custom off road accessories such as custom bumpers, roll bars, installing after market lift kits, etc.,  most items of which can also be powder coated prior to installation on the vehicle in our one facility. Things to consider for the metal preparation of your automotive restoration project. Metal Preparation– The complete removal of rust and prior finishes is essential to expose the true condition of the metal surface. Media blasting is a quick, thorough solution for the removal of existing rust and prior finishes, also uncovering prior body damage.  By taking it down to the bare metal surface you know the true condition of the part. Using garnet for media blasting not only completely removes and exposes the metal substrate but provides the essential cutting profile needed to achieve maximum powder coat adhesion, ensuring the powder coat finish will not lift or release from the metal surface from poor metal preparation. The blasting of some restoration vehicle hoods and deck lids can be touchy subject.  Flat hoods and deck lids are susceptible to warping due to their design and construction, such as a ’67 Camaro or Mustang hoods.  Fenders, doors and curved panels aren’t affected like flat panels hoods and deck lids are. Metal Finishing– We offer an Epoxy Primer powder coat finish, which seals the raw metal surface after blasting protecting it from further surface corrosion exposure.  This product is a durable baked on primer that sands just like a paint primer, accepts plastic fillers and is fully compatible with automotive paints and also serves as a great base for a powder coat finish.  Sheet metal fenders and other sheet metal body surfaces can be worked after the Epoxy Primer is applied.  It is available in matte gray and black.  For you guys out there that want a matte black or gray primer finish for your rat rod, this can give you that look more reasonably than custom paint. There are several advantages of powder coating versus liquid paint.  Environmentally, powder coating doesn’t have the issue of VOC’s that you have to deal with when applying liquid paints.  Powder coating can be applied much thicker than liquid paints without running or sagging.  Quicker drying time is another advantage of powder coating, after the part is cured in the oven, on average of 35 to 45 minutes at 400 degrees, it is then removed from the oven and can be handled as soon as it cools down (usually around 20 minutes), the finished product can be handled almost immediately, accelerating the reassembling of your project and it’s components.  Note: Even though finished powder coated products can be handled after they’re cooled, the finish doesn’t achieve maximum hardness for 24 hours. It is not recommended that tires be mounted to freshly coated wheels for 24 hours. Many powder coat projects can be media blasted, prepped and powder coated within a week or two depending upon the size and extent of preparation needed and of course the powder coat facility schedules.  It is always best to call ahead to schedule the drop off of your vehicle chassis, body and components so the facility is able to prepare for your project to be dropped off.  Efficient room may need to be made, in advance, to properly store the project while it goes through the medial blasting and powder coating processes.  It is also a good to schedule the pick up your completed project at a predetermined time so there will be plenty of help loading and padding for transporting wherever it may be going from there.  You should avoid leaving your finished powder coated or blasted items at any facility for very long after they are finished, these facilities are busy and constantly shuffling space for projects, handling large items and their parts through various stages of the process, striving to keep efficient space available at all times.  Working around these finished products definitely which raises the risk of damage unnecessarily. Quality powder coat finishes greatly protect the restoration project you have invested in, not to mention retains value for re-sale later on.  Other benefits include corrosion protection due to weather exposure, chemical resistance, hydrocarbons, solvents and organic acids.  Today’s powder coating provides a quality finish that is resistant to cleaning agents, has impact resistance, abrasion resistance, thermal resistance and also provides a protective barrier to sea atmospheres. A wide variety of choices, such as colors, textures and finishes are now available as well, making it much easier to find a match or compatible color for your custom or vintage project.  Pin striping and airbrushing can be applied to your powder coat surface as well.  Airbrushing can be applied over a base coat and then topped with a clear powder top coat.  A UV clear top coat should be applied to seal the paint and protect it from the elements.  Some chromes powders, such as Super Chrome, Black Chrome, Clear Chrome and some silvers require a clear top powder coat for UV protection and to avoid fading. Tip: Keep in mind that you want to enhance your items being coated.  Pitted surfaces or poorly cast parts are better suited to textured powders such as veins, hammertones, rivers and wrinkles.  A high gloss finish will accentuate any defects.  In order to guarantee any previously chrome items, they must be sandblasted prior to being coated. Powder Coating Care and Maintenance- The first basic of ‘Powder Coating’ is that it is still a form of painting.  All paints are made of polyals-polymers (plastic).  Liquid paints and powder only differ in the carrier of base material used to transmit or apply the polymer.  Liquid paints use solvents or water as a base material to carry the body of the polymer.  By using these carriers you will lose some of the properties associated with the polymer.  Durability, chemical resistance, mil thickness, UV stability are all properties that will change from the raw base resin used to make the polymer.  To counter act the thinning or dilution of those properties, other chemicals are used in the formulas to help off-set the loss.  With powder, you lose less of those properties from dilution because you are taking the raw polyal resin, grinding it up into a powder and then baking the hard finish. In the original form of powder, you retain the natural properties of the polyal, plastic.  You have not changed those properties.  Polyals are still subject to the restrictions of what they will withstand normally.  Solvents, acids, strippers and removers are all harmful to the powder coated finish, because it is a plastic paint. The best rule of thumb is ‘how would you treat your car?’  The powder coated finish is a lot thicker than a wet paint.  It is a lot more flexible than liquid paints, and will have a good resistance to abrasion and chemicals (within their parameters).  Use general purpose household cleaners, plain soap and water and restaurant grade cleansers to clean your powder coated surface. Solvents and acids are just what their name indicates, to dissolve or remove plastic, paint and raw materials. Powders are not easily repaired once damage has been done to the surface, so care needs to be taken, just like you would take care of a high end paint job.  Powder coating will last longer primarily due to film thickness, curing at high temperatures to make material more flexible and stronger, and retention of a higher amount of natural defenses to chemicals. Easiest thing to remember ‘Powder Coating is still a form of painting’ Treat a powder coated surface just like you would treat a high quality painted surface.  You can apply a wax or polish to powder coating just like your car or furniture.  You can buff out minor scratches like in your paint job, but solvents, acids, strippers and removers will damage the surface. Always call your powder manufacturer to verify if you may use an unfamiliar cleaner on your parts.