First off, I want to thank Dave(dfreder370) for helping me out and powdercoating my wheels. My wheels were chrome bbs rx wheels. I was having some issues with the chrome finish and peeling, so I decided to powdercoat them. I met up with Dave and he gave me different brochures to look through. I decided to go with gray metallic as the color. I called around and found a place called Duroweld that sandblasted my wheels for 150 bucks. I then met up with Dave this past Saturday to do the first wheel. I have the pictures of the wheels when chrome, sandblasted, and powdercoated. http://www.imagestation.com/mypictures/

Dave can chime in and talk more about the process if he wants.

 

let me know for sure if you guys can see the pics

 

that link takes me to my album

 

member sign in for us non-members

 

 

sandblasted wheel



chrome wheel

hopefully this works

 

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4287681021

thats the album on imagestation, otherwise i can email them to someone to host

 

I tried yahoo - opened the folder to the public, then opened the pic to full size the got the properties - cut and pasted the URL into the IMG window. Seems to work just fine.

 

so anyone wanna host them?

 

that works just fine for me.

They look like they were chromed. What's the difference between that and powdercoating?

 

The link above works....u don't need anyone to host them. Just copy the properties link to each photo and copy it here w/ [img] before the link and [/img] after the link .

 

They were chrome when i bought them from bbs. Then i took them in and had them sandblast the chrome off the wheels. Then dave powdercoated them. I dont have the pictures in order so it might be a little confusing

 

Imagestation wont let me host them directly cause im not a paying member. The pics also need to be resized and i dont have the software on my pc to do this.

 

cool, so what's the finished product going to look like?

 

yeah you do, you can do it in Paint.

 

picture 10 and 13 show the one wheel after the powdercoating. The chrome is all before hand pics. Then there is pics of dave doing the powdercoating.

 

I haven't seen any pictures yet, but I know what we did.

Because Brians chrome was peeling, a common trait of chrome, I had him have then sandblasted. He did, and it gave me a clean, dry and oli free surface to work with, which is essential for powder coating to work.

Unfortunately, but no problem in the end product, the sand blaster was more like a gravel blaster, he used a very large particle size to sandblast. You could have filed your fingernails on the wheels brian gave me. They were pretty rough, but they were clean! That is all that I ask.

I built a fixture to hold the wheel. Took about 10 minutes to make.

I did a standard (cold, meaning room temperature) application process, and as the powder melted and flowed, I could tell that the very rough surface I was given was going to "telegraph to the surface", and would not be pleasing. No problem.

Due to the mass of the wheel, I wanted to cure at 400F for one hour. If this was thin sheet metal, it would have been 12 minutes at 400F.

After the powder had gone through Tg (glass transition temperature, where the state changes from solid powder to liquid polymer, I estimate the wheel was at, at least 300F. The powder melts at about 140F, so I pulled the wheel, and painted it again.

This "forces" the film build to increase, and gave to me, a pleasing effect. There is some orange peel present, but I consider it more than tolerable. All paints have orange peel to one extent or another.

After 65 minutes at 400 F (really, a matter of getting there for 10 minutes or so, we pulled the wheel and applied a 90+ gloss clear coat. The room temperature clear coat was forced to melt onto the 400F degree wheel. We threw it into the oven for another 15 minutes, so I knew the clear coat would cure.

We took the wheel and fixture outside, about a fifty foot trip, and here is where I got two suprises.

1. I dropped the fixture, dinging the back side of the wheel rim. No biggie, but I have modified the fixture so that can't happen again.

2. Wearing thick cotton gloves, I carefully grabbed the wheel in the area where the tire would cover any marks left on the wheel. I thought it would be tacky, but it wasn't (due to the polymer crosslinking).

So, to save some time, I took the wheel, and threw it into a snowdrift to cool it down. No effect on the finish, whatsoever.

Brian, I have e-mailed with my favorite hosting buddy for you picks.

 

 

 

Sigh. Still, no images.

 

sounds cool though......

 

PM me... I can host.

 

These pics worked for me.

 

 

 

Im gonna have to repost a new thread. This things a mess.

 

Imagestation Blows Donkey cock.

 

Brian I can host as well

 

The pic of the wheel on the floor (long threaded rod sticking through the center), had the base coat on, but not the top, clear coat yet. With the clear coat on, the wheels have a wet "look" to them. I finished all of Brians wheels today, and I am very sure he will be happy, but he is the final judge.

17" wheels are the largest I can paint. Bri's wheels fit in my clean room oven with a half inch to spare on all sides, so no 18s or 19's please. Otherwise, I would.

Jesus Christ, am I getting gray and bald!

 

I'm thinking of doing the same thing you are. How difficult or any problems did you have on removing the center cap ??

 

The centercaps are different for different wheels. Mine just pop right out. You can break the clips if you arent careful.

 

Chrome looks much better!!!!

 

You suck at the internet

 

I have never seen gray rims kinda weird

 

They look really good in person. The color is off in that pic posted. It basically looks like a lighter shade of anthracite. Its not a dull gray.

 

thanks

 

lol

 

Everyone can see the ones I posted for him, correct ?

 

Yea they should be able to see them. Thanks for putting them up by the way. Only thing is you cant even really see what they look like now. I will be getting the remaining 3 wheels today and get the tires mounted and take more pics.