With Tom Esposito’s almost 14 years of experience in the powder coating business, the New Yorker just might be considered an old hand at the finishing craft.
Tom EspositoBut starting his business at 17 — when he began Espo’s Powder Coating in Staten Island in 2009 — still makes Esposito a young man in the industry, and he celebrated his 30th birthday by moving into more spacious facilities in Eatontown, New Jersey.
“I had the shop where I lived in Staten Island,” Esposito says. “But then I moved down the shore to New Jersey. I wasn’t planning on moving, but this is the best thing I have ever done for me and my business.”
Massive Amounts of Wheels for Aftermarket Customers
Espo’s Powder Coating is coating massive amounts of wheels for aftermarket customers.His business at Espo’s Powder Coating is coating massive amounts of wheels for aftermarket customers, especially the ones who like a unique look to their Mercedes Benz, their Ferrari, or their Lamborghini.
While the facility has also been growing into more non-automotive coatings such as commercial and industrial customer and marine parts, Espo’s Powder Coating has made its name known not only in the Big Apple and along the Jersey Shore but in most other parts of the U.S. from customers who ship their parts to Esposito.
A big player in the social media world — with plenty of photos of coated parts on Instagram and Facebook — Espo’s Powder Coating quickly became the place on the eastern seaboard to take your high-end car to get it tricked out with new wheel colors and coatings and accessories.
“My old space in Staten Island had two parking spaces, which doesn’t lend itself well to people coming in to see you,” Esposito says. “Now we have 6,000 square feet and plenty of parking, plus there is a lot of room out back of my shop, too. We just didn’t have that in State Island.”
“In the old booth, you’re working on a part, and you’re like, ‘damn, my back’s against the wall.’”
Espo’s Powder Coating moved to their new location in the August of 2022 after Esposito spent months getting the shop ready by himself and a few employees and friends, building walls and the infrastructure himself at night after working all day at his Staten Island location.
“Everything is new here when it comes to coating,” Esposito says. “The only thing that I have from the old shop is my tire machine, my balancer, and my blast room because that was only about three years old.”
New Paint Booth Gives More Flexibility
Esposito, at left, and his team assembled their booth and systems themselves.The first thing Esposito did when planning for his new space was spec out a new paint booth, which he did with the help of Global Finishing Solutions in Osseo, Wisconsin; he purchased the unit from Dietz Supply and did the installation themselves.
The size is a “monster,” as Esposito calls it, measuring 16 feet wide by 12 feet tall by 24 feet in depth. It gives him and his team plenty of room to maneuver around compared to their old booth.
“In the old booth, you’re working on a part, and you’re like, ‘damn, my back’s against the wall,’” Esposito says. “There’s way more room so we can coat more things at once. And obviously, now we’re doing a lot bigger parts since we are not limited to 12 feet.”
The shop works with Andy Pope from Tiger Drylac powder coatings, and Martin Pageau from Greensolve has been supplying the company’s chemistry for stripping and other needs for years.
Espo’s Powder Coating installed a Reliant Finishing System oven —which Esposito installed himself to save on costs — and utilized Delta Air Compressor in Long Island to help them set up a new system, which Esposito says is a big improvement from their Staten Island location when their system was a tad small.
“We were running out of air all of the time,” Esposito says. “If we would use an impact gun to take wheels off a car, it was like, ‘Tell Dan to stop blasting for a second,’ because the compressor can’t keep up. But, we have a 50 horsepower system with almost a thousand gallons of storage, so that won’t be a problem.”
Growing Industrial and Commercial Business
Espo’s Powder Coating recently started working with an awning company to coat their products, and hopes they will pick up even more industrial work.Aside from the wheelwork that people had come to know Espo’s Powder Coating for, his work is branching out to industrial, too. They just recently started working with an awning company to coat their products, and Esposito hopes that work will pick up even more.
But they are still known for their work with wheels. Monday is usually the biggest day as they pick up between 40 and 50 wheels to be stripped and coated; Esposito says they shoot for a 1-2 turnaround time to get the wheels back to their customers.
“We do all of our wheels in the morning, and then about lunchtime, we start switching to the bigger jobs,” Esposito says. “If we have something that’s really heavy and that is going take up some oven time, we’ll put it in the oven at the end of the day since we now have a burner shutdown mode.”
An aficionado of social media and getting his name out in front of car and bike enthusiasts, Esposito has increased his brand awareness by hosting several custom car shows in his parking lot, which he calls “Cars and Coffee.” The events attract 50 to 60 unique collector cars, and about 200 people attend.
“It been a huge change coming here, and the overhead has quadrupled. But we’re doing more work."
Esposito started the company when he was 17 years old and a huge BMX fan. When he couldn’t find someone to powder coat his bike parts, he set up his own shop in his parent’s garage and did his parts, plus others in the BMX circuit. When business began to pick up even more, some in his family backed him to open his own facility on State Island, which suited his needs for several years until business began to grow even more over the last few.
New 6,000 SF Space Just the Right Fit
That’s when Esposito decided to move to New Jersey with his employees to open the 6,000-square-foot facility, which the owner says now has its own break rooms, bathrooms for all, and better equipment.
For Esposito, the growth of the business has been ever-changing for him, and he tries to keep a level head in managing the growth in space, staff, and costs.
“It been a huge change coming here, and the overhead has quadrupled,” he says. “But we’re doing more work. Still, it’s a lot higher payroll, and bigger expense, obviously. I could tell you.”
Esposito says he plans to stay in Eatontown for some time, if only because the most recent move took its toll on him.
“It was super stressful and took a couple of years off of my life,” he says. “I was able to afford new equipment, so we basically built a second shop and then shut down the old one. I wouldn’t really want to move again, but when my seven-year lease is up here, I’m sure I’ll be saying, ‘Damn, we need a bigger place.’”
