04Carbon6

To make a long story short. I brought my car to my local Firestone to have a tire patched and all my wheels balanced. When I got my car back both right side wheels were damaged. So the place that they were sending them to get refinished power coats instead of using liquid paint. Power coating is a much stronger finish then paint, so I wanted to get all my wheels done. So I went up to the wheel place, which is called Transwheel, and I saw all the different colors that could be done. The color I ended up with is called smoked silver or hyper black. Its very very similar to the 18" Infinity G35 wheels. The pics don't really do justice and my dirty ass car doesn't help either. Let me know what you guys think.

leftride

iTrader: (1)

looks pretty cool, how it wasnt too much $$ since it seems like everyone was screwing up.

accsuperstar

wow! looks good. wonder what it looks like in person

TSX 'R' US

Hey...that's pretty kewl!!

Deelover

guess they couldnt do the center caps. I would have made them buy me 2 brand new rims, but the powder coat looks good.

Sturm

That looks pretty damn sweet! How much did it cost you?

dabuda

it looks pretty good actually...didnt know the oem rims could look nice

dom

Looks good. Do you plan to put the center caps back on?

xizor

looks similar to the silverstar color

04Carbon6

It only cost me about 170 bucks out of pocket. Not bad for getting all of them done.

I am going to put the center caps back on. I just dropped them off at another wheel shop to see if they can match the color with liquid paint. But I kinda like the look with no center caps. It makes it look like they're my race wheels

Dan Martin

Nice! Did you go with polyester or epoxy powder?

04Carbon6

I actually have no clue. Whats the difference?

I also just noticed that in all my posts I've been spelling powder wrong.

Dan Martin

I'm by no means a powder coating expert but I do have many parts that are powder coated. As far as I know these are the differences:

Epoxy
Poor UV protection (colors fade) but good water resistance (no corrosion)

Polyester
Good UV protection but poor water resistance

Maybe Smitty could enlighten us....

04Carbon6

Well what I do know about the process is that after the powder coating is done there is a layer or two of clear coat that is applied to add gloss and to protect the finish. The finish has a lifetime warranty so I would think they used the Polyester for the good UV protection and then the clear coat takes care of the water resistence part. Does that make sense?

Dan Martin

Works for me.

Smitty

Thats a question for Dave Fredericksen... he is the powdercaoting Expert..
He will be along.

dfreder371

That's a pretty good choice. We charge 200$ for four, but a percentage goes to support this board. I powder coat (15 years now), but all I have is a lab with small ovens, so I can only do one wheel at a time. Hence our slightly higher cost. I don't have the luxury of a powder coating line.

Center caps: Here's what you do. Carl, will you please post a pic of my wheel with the acura logo installed? Have a machine shop make you up four fairly thin aluminum discs Have them powder coated to match what you've already done. Go to a pinstriping shop with your acura (or whatever) logo. Have them scan it into the computer. Have 16 of the logos made for about 25$. Make SURE they use a UV approved material, You will need 16 to get four, good centered logos. Wearing thin latex gloves, clean the wheel centers in alcohol. Apply the logos. Using Devcon two ton epoxy to glue the new discs to the old center caps.

Materials: Epoxy? God, I hope not! Polyester is good. Polyester TGIC is the best (triglyceride iscyanurate). And by the way, I hope to god the powder coater sand blasted your wheels free of the old powder coating down to bare metal. If not, you may be looking at a problem called intercoat adhesion down the road. It happened to someone over at A-CL

Smitty

dzuy

i should powdercoar my oem's gold

Smitty

dfreder371

The anthricite cls6 navi is my car with my custom powder coated wheels. See what I mean about how to do the center caps?

04Carbon6

Those wheels look awesome!! Thanks for all the advise. When I get my center caps back I'll see how they match. If not then I might have to try using the aluminium disc. The place that powder coated them said that they dip the wheels in acid or sand blast them by hand to strip them down to bare metal. So I would hope I don't have any problems with the finish down the line. But if I do, I have a lifetime warrany on the finish

accsuperstar

what process is used to get wheels to the hyperblack or diamond black (of bbs) finish?



something like that

Stokeless_TSX

nice

dfreder371

Check here guys. These guys did my wheels. Even though I am a powder coater, this is a three step process and I cannot do step number two. The big drawback to this is that you have to ship your wheels to Pittsburg, California (San Fran area). There the wheels are sandblasted. Then a base powder coating is put on about six to eight mils thick and completely cured (1 mil=.001"). The the wheels are put in a PVD chamber, Physical Vapor Deposition, and I don't have one of those at work. Electrodes of nickle and chrome are placed in the chamber, and the chamber is evacuated. Then current is run through the nickle electrode to provide a base for the chrome. The nickle becomes a vapor and completely coats the wheel. Then they vaporize the chrome to give the chrome look. The chrome can look like real chrome, or the black pearl chrome that I have on my anthricite CLS 6 speed navi.

Ster two is quite interesting. The deposited metal is 15,000 angstroms thick when complete. As a comparison, a hair on you head is 250,000 angstroms thick, so this is quite a thin layer. Finally coat number three is a clear acrylic powder coating, and that coating can be either very high or very low gloss. I opted for high. $150 per rim.

You guys don't know a lot about me yet. Not only am I a powder coater, I have a full blown corrosion lab. My company makes a lot of shit that is used outdoors. Nails, screws, tools and car parts. You do not need to question the corrosion protection of powder coatings at all. And those wheels are not my summer wheels. They are on there every single day and here in Chicago during the winter they throw around salt like it is free. The only times during the winter that I got the CL washed was when there was too much salt on the windows, and it was getting too dangerous to drive cause I couldn't see. I WANTED a lot of salt on the wheels to give them a good test! After one Chicago winter, the wheels look like the day I took them out of the box.

So here you go. This is only a two man shop, but these guys are becoming filthy rich with this process. And in 2005, the black pearl will be a standard finish on one Jeep, forget which one. The owner is Gary Goodrich, and he is one hell of a nice guy. Patrick is his powder coater, and either of them is competent to answer your questions. The opening picture has the black wheel also. When I took them to get the tires put on them, I thought it was quite a shame to cover up most of that beautiful powder coating job.

I know, I'm rambling, but final thing: for you chrome freaks out there, real chrome plating is complete shit compared to this product. Chrome flakes, cracks and peels. This is $600 for four wheels. To do the copper/nickle/chrome plating right, the MINIMUM amounts of nickle to be applied is eight layers, so it becomes a ten step process. That ONE wheel will alone cost you $600 or more. Enjoy

www.goodrichtechnology.com

dfreder371

Hey Carbone: They sand blasted them, not acid dipped. Powder coatings are PLASTIC. Acid wouldn't do a damn thing to the powder coating. Your car battery contains sulfuric acid, and it is made of plastic.

Infamous425_RENAMED

i can vouch for goodrichtechnology. i had em black-chrome my TL-S wheels also. they do very good work

tai

wow, I am new TSX Car owner, and wow guys, I am over whelmed with info on what I can do to my car, and now power coating my wheel is now one of my "want" for my car. THANKS!!!

Smitty

Just follow the link when your ready.

http://www.ckworks.com/powdercoat/

dagigu

looks tight!!!

accsuperstar

anyone?

dfreder371

Accsup: That is a powder coating process also. It just doesn't have the definition and high reflectivity of the goodrich process because real chrome is used in that process. As you know, I have not said good things about real chrome. But when real chrome is sandwiched between two layers of powder coatings, that is a different matter.

The pigment in the wheel you pictured is most likely an aluminum flake in the powder coating resin.

Tsex on 19s

thas hot.. anyone kno any good stores in orlando florida...cause i dont wanna jus go to anyone.. i need someone to kno what they doing..