8 spoke wheel: Paint or Powdercoat

I got myself an 8 spoke wheel. It's undamaged, bu the paint is looking a bit rough.

I guess it has been painted a couple of times. It's black now, but you can see some gold paint where the black has been chipping.



I want to have the wheel in a different color. Most probably pearl white (still the best combination with the RWB I think) or blue like blue of the bike.
I will have to do the front wheel also. Can the whole wheels be done or do some parts need to be taped when coated (like on the front wheel where the rotors are fixed)

To have it match the blue of the bike (if I go that way) I guess I will need to have it painted. I didn't found any blue yet that matched the blue of the bike if powder coating.

Anyone has some experience with painting the wheels?

 

I had the wheels on both my VFRs powder coated and I pulled the bearings and seals out of the front wheels and just replaced them with new ones when I got the wheel back. Most places who do a lot of wheels should know not to powder coat the areas where the bearings, seals and rotors go. As far as color, white does look really sharp, especially on the RWB but it does show brake dust very quickly, trust me on that! Blue might work pretty good too for your RWB! Member OCLandspeeder had his wheels done recently in an anthracite color and it looks really good, he has an RWB too.

 

Yo OC, post some pictures of your wheels Bud.

 

IMO if your new 8 spoke is or your current front wheel is chipped in both apps the old paint should be stripped. Both paint and powdercoat are strong durable finishes.

Yep, the wheels should be completely disassembled.

There will be " matching" paint for the blue. Powdercoat is a maybe if the importance is great.


Don't make the assumption that the painter or the powdercoater knows what you want, or where to paint or powdercoat. Be specific.

 

I had mine done last fall. I went powder coat. I personally believe it is more durable. But you cannot get the Pearl White in powder, just basic white. I would be inclined to tape off what I wanted kept clean myself. The wheels should be media blasted before they are coated though. I think most if not all places who do coating also do media blasting. These should be done with something like walnut shells. I think sand is too abrasive for these aluminum wheels. You may have to scrape a little surface clear of the powder coat to ensure a good contact with the hub.

If you are going to do the fronts, which I would be inclined to do at the same time, a tip given to me, was to get some cheap bolts from the hardware store to put in where the brake rotor bolts were to keep the powder coat out of there. You will still have to scrape the flat surface around these holes but that is an easy process. If you go for the stick on balancing weights, they look ugly as shit on white wheels. Cheap $1.59 model paint works great. DOing both means down time only once.

Ask around the bike shops about who to do your painting or powder coating though. I was about to get mine done locally, but quickly abandoned that idea due to fair warning from my dealerships parts guy who I have great confidence in.

If you go white, you had better like cleaning them. Someone here suggested soon as the wheels cure well, give them a couple good coats of carnuba wax for easier cleaning. I haven't done this myself but I trust who suggested this. That may also make chain fling easier to clean off, of course depending what you use on the chain.

We want to see the end result. That's a direct order regimental # 331.

 

Actually now that I think about this, the shop that did mine, actually put the rear wheel on a brake disc grinder and lathed off just though the paint that was on the surface that was supposed to be kept clean. That shop I have nothing but praise for. I talked to them about doing the clear coat on my truck wheels and they advised me against it, saying they could sell me brand new wheels cheaper than they could clean and re coat the old ones.

 

Good point, and sound advice. Is this really Badbilly? :wink:

The place I've been going to has been doing MC wheels for quite some time now and has it down, rearing races, bolt holes and rotor locations are all clean as whistle when you get your wheels back, but like BB said, make sure they know what you want and where you want it.

Cheers

 

Your coater is right. Here is the deal. PC is easy. It is the blasting that is killer. Factory PC is tough. You will not get it off with walnut shells. You are going to have to use media to blast (not sand because that will damage the aluminum). Blasting factory PC is like scraping chewing gum off with a putty knife. It just balls up and the heat of the blast media turns it plastic. Media cost money and it wears out. Blasting is the biggest expense in quoting a PC job. As for colors, white and black are easy. They shoot them all the time. If you want blue you will probably be charged a special set up fee and a minimum powder charge. You are right, there are not as many different colors in powder as there are in paint. You can have powders fromulated but it is a crap shoot and it will cost an extra $150 or more usually for a 55lb box. Yes, a P Coater that does lots of wheels will mask the right areas. Clear coat is a good idea on new coatings. They pull the wheel out of the oven, after the color coat and while it is still hot, and shoot the clear. Then they stick it back in the oven to cure. You can't really PC over paint or even old PC without dirt or oils showing through.

My first and oldest client is a powder coater. Used to work the phones and quotes when the boss was out of town.

 

Yes indeedy sure is me. Unlike others who have advice on all things from how to wipe after taking a dump to spirituality, I have learned not to believe everything I read on the WWW or sales pitches from dudes in polyester leisure suits.

So back to the subject of powdercoating.

Media is that which is used to prep the surface and can be from mine tailings to shaped plastics of known shape and density to corncobs to both peanut and walnut shell to to bqking soda. In walnut shell blasting the nutmeats are removed so that no harm comes to them as sentient beings. In track blasting used to prep concrete flooring the medium is steel lathe and mill shavings, nails and nuts and bolts. IOW the selection of the blast media is wide and varied. I would need to see evidence that any heat is produced enough to cause balling of old paint or powdercoat.



Powdercoating is a process. Small powdercoating rigs and blasters both portable and cabinet types can be purchased from Harbor Freight. Any that I have done is done by a company that does the powdercoating and plating for Kenworth. There are many choices and some homework is necessary. For dudes living in large metro environs what may be available in some small town is not going to be the same. There are online powdercoaters with multi-million dollar shops that are what might be called mail order. Bottom line you just don't walk in like it's Walmart and the process is as simple a buying a six pack of TP. Blasting equipment is not a simple on or off tool, of some size that fits all. The same can be said for the application tools used in applying and curing the actual fuseable powder or to the many types of paint applicators and yes even including rattlecans.

If ya have a painter or powdercoater you trust, great, use him or her. If not, do the homework. A really great start is to go to Google or if ya like like pop ups that cover your screen like a coat of paint, talking ads or the latest from FOX or Al Jazeera or Kim Kardashian's latest booty measurement use Bing.



Some shops powdercoat engine blocks entire body pieces and car frames.



Stripping old paint or powdercoat is not limited to media blasting. For those who are on a budget there are chemical strippers that is used (RTFM) according to the directions work just fine. These contain a fraction of methlylene chloride. The so called safe strippers are sodium hydroxide (lye) and are not really great to begin with, do not work well at all at below 70F and will pit aluminum alloys. This included the professional strip shops. Hot lye (bye-bye) ! Some upscale shops use straight methylene chloride in a sealed vapor booth.

 

If you are keeping the wheels long term go with a proper media blast followed by Powdercoat. Here is my extra set of wheels I recently had done in "Shasta White"




Rollin

 

JFDR,

A professional powder coater should have pearls, metallic or anodized colors available. These pics are from the shop that did my wheels:



There is a pearl white that is pretty close to the factory Honda color. Paint is the way to go if you want an exact match. Either finish is durable & should last a long time if the surface is prepped properly.

 

Sorry, I don't have pictures for you. It happens but only on really good factory PC, never on paint or shitty PC. A good bit of the PC we see is well applied and well cured. The operator has to focus the blast head just behind the old finish to strip it away. There is heat generated by the friction of the media. As for stripping we use two methods. All steel items like frames and wrought iron go into the burn-off oven. This process turns the old costing to ash. You can't use burn off on aluminum because it melts so we blast it. We do not use heavy silica abrasives on aluminum as it damages the surface and can make the finish look like a texture. We do a lot of aircraft parts so we use a plastic blast media. Aircraft regs specify that no surface material may be removed when stripping away the old finish so we take the same care with all our jobs. We have had bad experience with chemical strippers and there is the EPA regs that make it unattractive to a profitable business. We do all our blast in-house unless, we have a car frame or engine block and then we do send those out for sand blasting. Heavy silica abrasives are perfect for those applications.

I just tell you what I know. That's all I can do.

 

This sounds like just the place for those guys who do not live near a pro shop. Why not post up the details on how to get ahold of this place where you do this work?

Chemical strippers are sold in most hardware stores and DuPont makes a version that is specific to aircraft parts. One must have a contractors license to purchase same. It comes in 5 gallon quantities.

It may well be that this outfit you work for does not do or have the facilities to do chemical stripping but to imply that this area of the industry is somehow not profitable is a stretch.

Solvent type strippers unless I am completely missing the boat here are non-reactive with most metals. It is the hydroxide base (pun intended) that will pit aluminum and exacerbate oxidation on iron.

Solvent base strippers including the non fractionated methylene chloride with proper safety precautions are used widely on even antiques and other objects with antique value. The hydroxide types will screw up wood big time starting with the old style glues made from animal hides ie Hide Glue, Rabbit Skin Glue and on rare occasion the Texas Jackalope Skin Glue.

On the subject of the actual powder coating, on your post is an ad for Prismatic Powders with 6500 different colors. www.prismaticpowders.com . This might be a good place for those homework needs.

 

Hey Rollin..send your extra set to me...would be a great BD present bud. Thanks in advance mang

Sent from my SGH-T679 using Tapatalk 2

 

Wow, cool. You seem to know everything about the people I work with and about powder coating and strippers and aircraft specs and running a commercial powder coating business. I don't know why I bothered to write anything since ol Badbilly is here to take me to task and call me out. I'll just keep my fucking mouth shut. How's that.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I'll do some homework and have a look around to see if I can find a shop that has some experience with motorcycle wheels. Don't want somebody to screw up the wheels. Tried to find a spare front wheel to have a complete spare set, so I wouldn't have to remove the wheel from the bike to have it painted/coated. Unfortunately parts are hard to find over here.

 

LOL Nope, I don't know a thing about the people you work with. A few posts back you were working for a dealership in the Dallas area and now you are a telephone rep for a posdercoater?

Nope I don't run a powdercoaing business, as stated more that once I send it out to a firm in Seattle that does powdercoating, plating and other services for outfits like Kenworth and Boeing. Doing business with them for 20+ years and working at a trade that is akin to any type coating does give me a small edge on how to do a wheel on a Honda. BTW the wheels on my 91 are painted. I know because I prepped and painted them. They didn't need stripped only scuffed some and a little feathering out of s few nicks which were primed with a zinc chromate. type primer/filler so as to adhere to the alloy wheels.

On the issue of generated heat, some blast apparatus operates with water as a matrix. Big stuff like whole buildings, ship hulls and other onsite applications. This also abates the particulate matter to a minimum that would other wise become airborne.

If you can open your mouth long enough metaphorically share where this shop you are fronting that would be great. Then you can get all pissy and lay it off on me.

 

Hopefully you won't follow all the suggestions and paint or powdercoat your wheels in white when what you wanted was blue.

 

You got me! Please EVERYONE! Disregard anything I have said. Refer all power coating questions in future to BadBilly. I don't know a thing about powder coating since I haven't worked purchasing plating services for Kenworth and Boeing. You alone know all. I bow before your mighty Internet chops. I am humbled in your presence. I come here to talk about bikes in general and VFRs in particular not to get into pissing contests with keyboard commandos and it seems that I have done just that. I apologize for that too.

 

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