Powder coating wood screw?

[PT Doc]

Hi all. Need help from the HM brain trust.
Im having my black deck railing re powder coated along with the brackets. Let’s just say the painters that were hired didn’t mask off and thought that painting in wind was a good idea.
I will need to reinstall my black metal deck railing that was installed with specialty brackets and 5/16” wood screws. Lengths varied between 1.5” to 3” but that’s not really relevant. I broke a screw today when removing them and don’t want to use the same screws. Don’t want any more issues.

If I bought new woods screws from Home Depot and had them powder coated at the same time the railing and brackets were redone, is there any issue with the heat of the powder coating process weakening the wood screws. I’m not going to growl on the screws on install since the head can damage the brackets, so they will be installed reasonably.

Im trying to prevent a problem by getting new screws and don’t want an issue having made an assumption that the powder coating would not effect the screws.

Thanks in advance for the help! I greatly appreciate it.

 

[Jake M]

Powder coating an outside "deck screw" will not bother it. I'm not sure that applies to drywall screws, those are darned near glass hard, but outdoor deck screws are still hardened, but VERY annealed, and not so sensitive.

I do think you're going to have a problem installing powder coated screws without damage to the head. Especially larger ones. I could be wrong though, you know what you're driving them into.

I would 100 percent recommend talking to your powdercoater about that situation, as I'm not sure how you'd actually accomplish the goal in a job shop environment. Their equipment and labor rate is gonna be a BIG factor in whether you're talking tens of pennies per screw, or tens of dollars per screw. If they have automated methods for small parts (which I'm not familiar with, but I know are out there), it might be no big deal. But if somebody's gotta hand hang and hand spray every single one........ If it were me, I'd run it by them.

 

[Firstram]

Use Stainless screws and "celebrate" the fancy hardware!

 

[Jim F]

I would think it easier to clean off the overspray.

 

[RJSakowski]

Powder coating temperatures are not high enough to affect any heat treatment in steel.

 

[PT Doc]

Thanks for the help. The wood screws have hex heads.

The tremendous over spray was attempted to be removed. Either it requires solvents to speed up the process or lots of mechanical abrasion. Either way the outer surface will be compromised as a result. This will cause a problem years down the road. The painters caused this problem and recommended redoing the railing. So that is how we are proceeding.

Black railings, with black brackets and black screw heads make sense. Stainless would stick out too much. The previous screws had the heads painted with Cardinal spray paint. They make the powder used in powder coating. It help up well but a socket on a painted head does damage it a bit. I’ll ask for a can of this spray paint and use it as touch up for the heads after install.

Might try to use the next size larger socket and place some tape on the inside to try to make the interface between socket and hex head a bit softer.

Thank you for the help.