ack! sorry, for some reason i thought danco offered only 6 colors. 12 is trickier, but if it's 12 it's 12. i probably won't be able to touch base with tammi until next week, and more importantly, i only have 6 samples for her to spray. let me do some digging when people get back into their shops next week. there may still be some significant droppings sitting around at the cutters that i can get to rainbow for swatches.
i'm completely playing it by ear right now, and i can't say much yet without talking to both shops. hoad on folks, we'll all converge shortly and if there is any significant input needed from you guys, i will get the word out. what i'm hoping to do is stay within current costing and color schemes while changing the process. if that's not possible, you will hear from me. at 6 colors, i was pretty sure it was. at 12, i have to dig.
just the paint costs for 12qts of cerakote is around 1200$, and then on top of that you have shop costs, which i only have quoted at 6 colors. if we don't actually have to buy 12 full qts, we'll be way ahead of the game, so stay tuned. the upshot here is that tammi is a painting and powdering genius and i 100% trust she'll fix my screw-ups for me. for example, the three blues may be just 1, 2 and 3 coats of a standard stock blue. since the coats are ridiculously thin and often don't need to be heated to cure, you have a heck of a lot more latitude than with powdering, and you don't have to solve a hundred simultaneous non-analytical equations to anodize to one of three blue colors (i still have no idea how danco can claim to anodize to that many colors.. and i probably never will, i guess).
on the upside, packing and shipping the plates is going to be a heck of a lot less than if they were powdered; cerakote is significantly more durable.
