Nicky Pass

When I sent my wheels away to get powder coated....should they have been stripped of the original paint??? Out of curiosity, I peeled some of the powder coating away....and it lloks like the original finish of the wheel when I first bought them I think www.classiccomponents.com did a shitty, bullshit, cock sucking, pathetic a mother fucking powder coating job:angry:

dfreder371

Nicky: One, I think you are right about a shitty job. If your wheels were properly cured to start with, an impact socket should have done little if NO damage. One thing you need to know about powder coating is that you need to become a thermodynamicists, you need to understand how objects heat.

Remember how I told you how to take a razor blade to an unseen edge and see if the paint curls like a pigs tail, and if it does it is cured? I should have been more specific. The CORE of objects is the last thing to reach cure, and the EDGES absorb heat first. I don't think you would have been too keen to me telling you to take a razor blade to the middle of the front face of one of your wheel spokes.

Sure, it would prove cure, but this is what we call, in the industry, "destructive testing". It works, but you destroy the very object you are trying to create.

I take it your wheels are going out to gary goodrich, and if so, that is a good move.

Ask johntypeS to confirm this, or I can show you myself if you want to get together. PROPERLY CURED powder coatings, in this example, on a 3x6" .032" clean steel panel (it can be bent by hand) was demonstrated to JohntypeS. After I bent the panel, by hand, I took a hammer to it, and now hammered the now double folded sheet absolutely flat, and I was viscious with it.

You would think the paint would at least crack, right? Nope.

Powder coating is a good thing Nicky, but you have to understand mass and heating. I think what happened here is that your first coater probably did a good job of APPLYING the powder coating on a massy wheel, and then did a poor job of CUREING them, they probably treated them like sheet metal. This will not fly.

A company we own paints screw heads of self drilling screws that may have to go through steel, 1/2 inch thick I beams. If properly cured, there is little (and I mean little), or no damage. If undercured, the paint will fly off the heads. I think you get the idea.

Also, when you contacted my through AOL and asked if I would recoat your wheels, I said, if we do that, your wheels would go into the oven at 375F for one HOUR.

Now, think about this for a minute, where your powder coating "failed" (and I do not blame the coating, I blame the cure), happened in the most massive part of the wheel, didn't it?

In short, powder coating cure works like this, and to keep things simple, we are talking about cureing a 3" by 6" .032" sheet metal panel. The instructions are "Cure at 375f for ten minutes AFTER the part reaches that temperature."

So, I set my oven for 400f, because an object NEVER reaches 375f in a 375f oven unless you have INFINITIVE time to spend. Then, I leave it there for 20 minutes. One has to be careful here. Snow white can discolor to yellow, but anything pigmented darker is pretty safe, but here is the key message:

If a 100%, good cure is obtained, this stuff should be bullettproof.
If 200% of cure is obtained, your are good also.
If 99% cure is obtained=JUNK! PERIOD!

And, ALL of this assumes the powder coating was applied to a CLEAN AND DRY surface, another matter entirely in itself, a whole new subject.

Gary will sandblast your wheels as the first step. He knows what he is doing. Nicky, you are short on details, at least with me. You DID use tire zone, right?

Nicky Pass

I sent my wheels to a place in California.....they said they powder coated them, so I assumed they sand blasted them...but when I looked closer at where they chipped.....underneath was the original paint that was on the wheels when I bought them! So I think they just painted over the original finish and said eveything was OK So also assume that powder coating would not cure properly to a painted surface.....otherwise.....they skipped a few steps in the process!!!!!!!!

dfreder371

Nicky: That is what is called an "intercoat adhesion" problem. And I would like to help you get every penny out of these bastards, but, you used the wrong word in the paragraph above.

"I assumed"

But, I would still call them up and demand a refund. Powder coatings can and are designed to be put on top of other powder coatings, and your wheels WERE powder coated by Acura with an acrylic powder coating.

A trick we use to save money is to get a black, glossy wheel, we first powder coat it flat black. WTF??? We do this because you can load the flat black up with cheap fillers, lowering the cost of the paint. Then, we follow it up with a high gloss clear, so, this is a two step process, and it does use more energy.

Why not just use one coat of high gloss black. You can, and there are advantages, mostly cost. But, powder coatings are self limiting to about two mils, if the wheel is not heated above the melt point of the powder. By doing the two coat, low gloss black, high gloss clear, we get about 4 or 5 mils on that wheel, and let me tell you, a wheel lives in a very nasty environment.

This is why I like gary process so much. The base coat is 6 mils, the metalization is so thin, it cant be counted, and the clear topcoat adds another two for a total of eight or so.

I am really pretty sure that your original Hagens were either coated with an acrylic or a polyester TGIC. Call Hagen, and find out the chemistry they use and who supplied. If they are reluctant, tell them your tale of woe. They should tell you I think.

Then, call your california powder coating company, and ask them specifically what brand of paint and chemistry they used. We may be able to get your money back yet. Here is why.

1. Powder coating manufacturers, when dealing with two coat systems, only test the final coat against THEIR base coat. To make this crystal clear, Rohm and Haas does not test their top coat on a base coat made by Spraylat. NEVER. Powder coating companies closely guard their formulas, and it would take powder coating company A way too much "reverse engineering" to figure out the formula pc company B used. Mostly because a lot of heat is involved, and a lot of complex reactions take place.

2. If your Hagens were originally, say acrylic, made by spraylat, and the california guys say "we overcoated with spraylat polyurethane, in both cases one and two the result is the same:

"GOTCHA! NOW, GIVE ME MY GODDAM MONEY BACK!

When putting one powder coating on top of another (and the first coat HAS to be cured first), we ALWAYS use the same paint manufacturer, and then we test the shit out of it!

And Nick, I have been after you for days about this: Are your center caps metal or plastic? Metal? OK. Plastic? You have a problem we have to deal with quickly. I already know the solution...

Nicky Pass

They are chrome plastic...is that a bad thing!

mattg

get a room.

Nicky Pass

for...............?

dfreder371

Nicky: It is REAl CHROME in between two layers of plastic. This COULDN'T be better! ONCE AGAIN, what about your wheel centers??????????????????????????????????????????? ???

Nicky Pass

What should I do with them???

dfreder371

Solutions elsewhere, in at least two places. You need a metal, glue on disc, and your problems are solved.