Has anyone stripped their own wheels?

For anyone considering stripping their wheels, go ahead and do it! Yes it takes some elbow grease, and you might lose a few brain cells from the chemical stripper fumes, but it's well worth the effort...

I really think it changes the look of the bike for the better.

 

Seeing as how it's been freezing lately I went ahead and got paint stripper and proceeded to get the scratched up nasty black paint off. I wish I could say it was a success but there were some areas that the paint refused to come off.

I tried using a dremel light grinder but it took forever and the results didn't look that great. Not only that I saw some very slight rust spots on the wheel and I opted to get the wheels powdercoated instead.

Here's the bike with the bling blinged wheels:



I really like how it looks and I almost wish I hadn't tried to strip the paint. The powdercoater would've sandblasted it all off anyway.

By the way, anyone in the north georgia area ought to check out Diversified Powdercoating, they're located on Bethelview Rd in Cumming. It cost me $135 for both wheels and included sandblasting, very reasonable indeed! :thumbsup:

 

Nice job, it looks faster!! hahha How many days did it take to powdercoat the wheels?

 

1-2 days sir :thumbsup:

 

Looks good Joey! (plus all the others!) :thumbsup:

I'm considering going to white wheels on my pearl white 06.
However, I'm still on the fence. I need to find some good pics of another 06 with white wheels. Decisions...decisions......yadda...yadda. :crazy:

 

The 09 Euro. Edition (black/white) has white wheels and looks good IMO.:thumbsup:

 

Looking harder will probably pay off. Some powders do cost more in some finishes and some colors. A good outfit that is not one of these overcharging boutiques will have a powder recovery booth. The amount of actual powder used on a couple of bike wheels ain't much.

The blasting is by "media". The media is chosen to fit the desired finish. The "media" in blasting can be anything from slag to bicarbonate of soda with inbetweens like ground up corncobs, nut shells and even shaped plastic with known density.

I'd suggest looking for a "commercial" powdercoater rather than one of the smaller outfits that may or may not have all that much overall experience and have little or no stock of types and colors of powder.

Tons of tech info on Google ect as well as price schedules.

BTW, nothing "wrong" with paint either. Rattlecans are rattlecans and are limited to single component coatings. Automotive paints are a whole nother can of err, "paint". Any coating on a bike wheel is not impervious to scratching or chipping over time.

 

Yeah, like park800 said the euro model in black/white looks pretty sweet! Regarding the white wheels, think of it this way, if you decide you don't like them just don't wash them again and they'll turn black ha ha ha!!