I must be slow, I thought the process was glass bead then powder coat

 

What about standard powders with a "gloss" clearcoat as the 2nd coat for extra protection? Or will the standard powder still fade after some time even with the extra clearcoat powder?

 

As long as the clearcoat was an exterior grade powder - that would be fine. If not, it'll eventually flake off or turn yellow.

 

If you use one powder on top of the other, they usually bleed together when you reheat the 2nd coat. Unlike wet paints, powder typically has the gloss built into itself. You could wet paint a clear on top of a powder. but know your going through a bunch of weird steps. Also almost all clears do not act as a barrier against oxidation due to the lack of pigment. The clear allows oxygen to leech under the clear. You could have spider web faded areas. Polish a piece of steel and then clear coat it for a test. In about four months you'll have those spider web looking rust tunnels all under the clear coat. Looks kinda cool.

 

We use to use both flat and gloss powders on our parts. From what I've seen both would fade at he same rate. Now what I would think might work, and Ive seen it done, is that after a rim is coated with powder, apply the same clear coat that you would apply to a car. Since that paint is not heated like the powder is, it would be a seperate "sheild" from fading. But that is almost double the cost. I would still just apply a spray-on wax every six months and keep them covered with a longer car cover. Its just plain old maintenence!!!

 

not powerd coated but i did a very good job painting them

 

Oooh, that looks nice. I was thinking of doing the same thing to my T2 wheels when they come. I also have a red S5 and couldn't quite picture how that would look, so thanks for driving a red car I guess . Quick question: what steps did you undertake when you painted your rims? If you could do a write up or direct me to one, that would be great. Again, nice job.

 

well i taped off all around the tire, and get the best paint and best primer u can get, i think i went to kelly moore for my paint, but put alot of coats of primer on and alot of coats and the actual paint on. as u can see i didnt do a very good job taping off the tire

 

How did you prep the rim? Just some parts cleaner or did you need to sand or something?

 

i used some emery clotch and some good cleaner and scrubed the **** out of it

 

http://www.realcoatings.com/12301.html
Raspyrx7 at teamfc3s.org does 16's or smaller for $100

 

I have the vert BBS rims on my 929, I had them original for a year and decided to paint gloss black last summer, I sanded lightly, put down 4 coats of gloss black engine paint adn 2 layers of clearcoat, Im pretty happy witht the job but the msking was very hard, it took about 45 mins to mask each wheel...

I paint my stock rollers gunmetal grey

 

I think that anybody interested in powdercoating their rims should check out this link:
http://forums.evolutionm.net/showthr...=powdercoating

Scary. I'll stick to spray paint or no coloring at all.

http://www.teamfc3s.org/forum/showth...threadid=38581

 

If hand painting with wet paint. You have to watch for the variations that can occur. I have seen good companies paint silver wheels that looked good but when you spin the wheel you could see the paint variations really badly. By then its too late. the wheel is mounted and etc. We would usually see this when we were spin balancing the tire.

Just something to watch for when painting in colors like siliver. Black is easier

 

Crash 7, We covered that heat treat thingy on the first page of THIS thread. I recognized that wheel immediatly as a weak *** vet wheel. You want to know who my biggest customers were when I was doing wheel repair??? Well I won't say their names here, but let me tell you there are three biggies here in the Socal. They all have a BIG pile of broken Vet wheels that are too bad to repair. All of them going to the scrap heap. The vet wheels are big and light and weak.

I am not going to bag on Vets. Viper wheels are really weak, they bend if you look at them. Porsche wheels are really reversed dished and they bend on speed bumps. All these stock wheels are made to be light due to the rotational weight factor.

Coincedently these wheels are found on enthusiast cars. So they go to Powder or chrome or polish etc. exponentially greater amounts than your average Caravan. Also becuase they are on enthusiast cars they are stressed a lot more than the Caravan wheel. It makes me crack up, they break and everybody immediatly blames something other than the driver was over stressing the part.

"Had to be powder coating".

You guys with three piece wheels know what I am talking about. You pay double for performance. Once to buy it and then again to repair it cause it so light and conversly weak. Those vet/viper/porsche wheels are different only becuase they are one piece. But the rim is thin thin thin.

 

That also HAS to be one of the WORST powder coating jobs I've ever seen.

Judging by the mottled texture and colour, those wheels were not properly prepaired or cleaned for powedercoating. Also, the uneven texture is a sign that the shop who did the work was trying to save time. When you cook the parts, you do it at about 400 for 25 - 30 mins. Some shops will do a half assed job by cooking the parts at a higher temp for a shorter period. The finish then doesn't "flow" and "even out" making the surface uneven in colour and texture.

To blame that wheel failure strictly on the Powder Coating is an easy-out and a poor excuse. It may not have helped, but is wasn't the sole cause.

Powder coating is an established method of metal coating, but like everything, there are ways to **** it up. If you are going to get your wheels coated - get it done by a shop that has done wheels before, and you can see some of their work. This is the way you'dd choose a mechanic or body shop - why is this any different?



9ine Deuce - those painted vert rims look great!

 

Nick,

would you also agree that the object that is being coated does not even reach the actual oven temps??? The object is only in the oven for 25 minutes. The surface heats up but the entire object. It would take time for the heat to (here's a ten cent word) "Convect" to the center of the (another) substrate.

When we would pull the items out of the oven, the guys wouldn't even use a glove! (I would cause I am a wimp)

 

I can't say that all the pieces that were cooked didn't reach the 400 degrees within the piece, as that would Depend on the thickness and density of the material. Thick pieces took a lot longer to cool down, but I'd be surprised if their interior temp reached the 400 degrees. We did everything from the aluminum pedals on aircraft drink carts to Industrial filtration and telecom equipment to fire hydrants.

We'd use gloves, if for no ther reason than to avoid leaving marks on the object, as it is still soft until it cools totally. That and they were damn hot!

Lets be honest here too - how hot do brake rotors get on a track? I'll bet that the heat transfer from a brake disk could reach 400 degrees on the back of a wheel where they touch.

 

That's true. Fox loves to show glowing rotors on NASCAR!! I am not saying that all rotors glow like that but there is a good example of how hot your brakes/wheel/hub gets. Steel starts to glow at around 675C or around 1100F That is way hotter than a powder coating oven. All that heat convects all over the areas that are touching.

according to their heat logic I guess USING a wheel is bad for it becuase it gets hot for an extended period of time. Causing the temper to be changed.