I'm not going to side rail this thread, the people I'm dealing with aren't familiar with these processes, they are the people that make the powders. The actual coating he is suggesting is alumina ceramic that is actually applied by an HVOF spray process and then surface finished. Yes, the coating is in the thousandths of an inch, however they hold up rather well inside gas turbine engines sprayed on critical rotating parts so I think it's worth looking into considering I have direct contacts in the trade and manufacturers. By all means if you can find plates at a decent price, roll with it. I'm not trying to detract from what you're doing. I've been thinking about this since January and this thread has prompted some motivation to move forward. I plan to make an investment, have a few made, put them in the hands of some makers to test drive and see how they perform. If the performance is good enough at a reasonable enough cost I will look into have more manufactured. A couple added benefits to a coating if it performs well enough, it can be re-applied, you can apply it to any shaped object (radius platens), I can think of a few more.
