Andy
Certainly powder coating has improved greatly in recent years, I found that colours, especially gloss black are now more UV stable, none of the horrible chalking which used to happen after a few years.
The coatings are also pretty flexible, for example, I've just checked the main fork spring on my 1934 Ivory Calthorpe which was coated a few years back and there's no sign of it flaking off
As Simon says phosphate treatment is the key and the firm I use does this. Apparently the kit isn't cheap so a lot of the new
players tend not to have it.
For removal of powder coat, a week long soak in a dichloromethane based paint stripper such as Starchems Synstrip usually gets it shifted.
Arwyn
