I am looking at having some Aluminum Wheels Powder Coated and looking for some first hand information for anyone who has had this work done. Is this something that almost any Powder Coating shop can do and is there any special "things" or techniques that need to be done? Thanks for all help.
I do powdercoating all the time... Theres nothing really different about aluminium wheels, Just cant blast them with a heavy grit... Its simple, if you wanna send them all the way over here ill do them. haha
I powdercoated my Harleys aluminum wheels around 5 or 6 yrs ago,they still look good.No chips fallen or things like that. I blasted them with gl*** beads,because i thought that the sandblasting wont be gentle for the wheels.
There are some things you should know about powder coating aluminum wheels - the first being whether or not the original manufacturer recommends it. Most manufacturers use power-coatings today - but they have designed their processes, cure times, materials, etc - to take the powder-coating into account in their design/strength calculations. From what I've heard, the temperatures that many use for curing the powder coating can result in the aluminum loosing some of it's heat treated strength/qualities (if baked too long). Check out the various vendors and do some research into heat treating and various types of wheels. Temperatures and processes may come into play. If the vendor is very experienced and comfortable with aluminum wheels, he should be able to explain his process and give you the details. Kind of also depends on the application --> if you're racing the car under stressful conditions (think road racing), then it may not be a good idea. PS: I'm not an expert, but did some research on this awhile back - learned that I needed to know a lot more!
I have a customer with a GT1 road race car and he had his wheel centers coated. They look nice and it has held up well. They did the inside face of them, where the wheel mounts to the hubs and it is a terrible pain to remove the wheels from the car after they are heat soaked. The powder remelts and glues the drive pins and hub face to the hubs. No, you'll never get a street wheel this hot but just for sanity's sake, don't get the inside face or any of the lug nut tapers etc coated. Have them masked off.
Here is the wheel from Rocket Racing which ahs a 'natural" finish on the center and a "machined" finish on the outer part. I will not be racing or putting heavy stress loads on the wheels. What I planned to do was powder coat the Hub and Center(spokes) in one color and the Outer (rim) in a second color.
I powder plenty of them, aluminum requires a bit of out g***ing/prebake but as far as the quality of the powder work, be sure to ask to see previous work, make sure its crisp and clean, not fat and heavy looking. With the sales of the cheap garage kits, everybody is a "powder coater" now a days. holler if I can help ya. I have plenty of 2 color rims to look at in my gallery section of the web listed below.
just verifies my previous comment, make sure you look at their previous work and attention to detail. A quality shop will mask any/every mating surface with high heat tape.
Here is a drawing of the Wheels the way that I would like for them to look. As much like original Model T wood wheels as possible. Thanks for all the help.
summersshow that is beautiful work. I would ***ume that the main wood color could be a darker color. Thanks
Ya most of the wood I do is darker... That was going on a '50 ford woody, and I was matching the ...Teak wood he had it done with... Probably wrong about the teak, but ya... I can do any color of wood.
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