I'm sure someone with actual experience will step in momentarily, but you might look at powder coating. From what I understand, it's pretty easily done and the powder coating seems to be at least as durable as the Hi Tek polymer coating, if not more durable. I'm not sure how they apply the powder coating, but I know that they bake it in an oven after coating which sets and cures the coating. The people that do this seem to swear by the process.