having my weels powder coated?
 

anyone know of a good place in the area to have my wheels powder coated?

Search is your friend...

http://seccs.org/forums/showthread.php?t=5640

Unfortunately, Metal Master's prices have gone way up...
http://seccs.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3782

^That's cheap (but lame that they have to be steel). I got my stockers PC'd black for that price, but as Dean said, the prices have doubled or something. It's all Cory's fault IIRC. :P

Nope. In fact, I heard it was YOURS! My rims had factory PC on them, that was easily busted by hand with some fine sand paper. Let alone the blaster I know they use.

All I know is: my FN01RC's have that dumb "hyperblack" coating which is really like a candy shell that just flakes off with the heat from my brakes... I'd love to P/C them white, but not if it's going to cost me $200.

...stupid internet "powdercoating weakens aluminum" rumors. If the 400F temps seen while P/Cing really did ruin wheels, what keeps the wheels from coming apart when my brakes heat up to 1000F?

Oh, my bad.

You should submit that to mythbusters.

That's probably too specific of a myth for their broad audience, but I'd love to see it done.

I don't know enough about the powder coat process to know for sure one way or the other, and I'm no expert in metallurgy. That said, I would be at least be cautious and read up before potentially screwing up the heat treatment on the wheels with a 400F process. As far as I know the annealing temps for most Al alloys are in a range of like 300-700F, applied over a few hours.

And even if you have a 1200F brake rotor temp, that doesn't mean the wheel will be 1200F, the wheel temp will be much lower (Al melting points are like 900-1200F).

I figure if my brakes are getting to 1000F (an educated guess based on the performance and temp range of the pads I use), the mating surface of the wheel has to be in the several hundreds F range.

Also, I don't know that powder coating is really 400F... I'm just making up stuff. Wikipedia says most powder coating cures at 200F, but I thought I saw 400F somewhere in the past.

Temperature paint applied to the rotor & wheel would tell you for sure what's going on. Be your own mythbuster. :D

My understanding is PC is bad for wheels not so much due to the heat, but the idea that the PC can mask stress cracks. It's been said that the factory coatings aren't as thick, which would allow for the sighting of cracks much easier, but the PC has a harder surface and is thicker than most factory coatings (which I can attest to, after mounting tires on my own PC'd wheels) and won't allow for the cracks in the wheel structure to be seen through it.

I don't know how much weight that holds, but I'd be less apt to think that the PC process is hot enough to mess with the wheels treatment process. I could be very wrong tho!

I don't think Scott has the stomach to be a mythbuster. He said "gross" when he drove through a family of bees.

I read this in one of Carrol Smith's great books 'Engineer to Win.' Not sure how much weight it holds, as the info could be a bit out of date.

So, if P/C is bad on race wheels for inspection purposes... what's the alternative? Hell, I'm worried now about that crappy hyperblack coating I've got. If I sandblast my wheels clean, is rattle can paint my only option?

Does anyone make a high-temp white that's worth a damn?

That's my understanding is that most of them are just plain painted. I haven't looked much into painting wheels, but I'm sure there's something good out there. I'd check with Bruspeed, see if he's got any ideas. I can also check with the manager at Barrett Paint, good friend of mine, and see if there's anyting good out there. If it requires a sprayer, I've got you covered Scott!

Well..

I've never really liked how panted wheels held up to stuff..


If someone wants to experiment before me, they could try this;

Spray down your wheels proper in whatever lovely color you choose.

Give them a light coat of Plasti-Dip spray (clear).

I wonder how durable this will be..

Plus I dunno if the PD will discolor over time - and be visible over something like white or a lighter color once that happens if so.

I'm gonna try it anyway, so I'm not really asking for a guinea pig! :oops:

I've been thinking about using it to prevent rock chipping on bumper skins and stuff for awhile, but if it turns out badly, it'll be fairly hard to get off - RockBlocker or something would be better in that situation, mostly.

Anyhow..

The only drawback I really see is that the PD coating will get nicked up when mounting tires and such.. I hear it's pretty resilient though.

And unless you're actually painting the wheels with the stuff, it shouldn't throw on any weight.

Any .02 is welcome.


Oh yeah, and the heat thing..

Dunno how it'll hold up to that. You could always spot test..

I used this to paint my wheels.
http://www.duplicolor.com/products/engine.html
It's really thick and has a tendency to puddle and run, but if you paint carefully it works fine. It held up great at RFR today, just make sure to get the 1200F stuff.