Powder Coating Questions

[He Man]

some really good stuff here, Speeddog good point! That was a big flaw on my part. I will retest till failure. though id need to find thinner pieces cause i dont have more than 75lbs of weights!

Motocreations, that is defintely some useful information. I have been looking for low temp powders with very little luck. I have however, found short duration powders via powders by the pound. the cure time is only 10 mins @ 400 after outflow. I am ebay sniping a IR thermometer. I plan on doing some test to see how evenly my oven heats up by hanging pieces of aluminum at various location and logging the temp. one of the things that ive read is to make sure the aluminum heats up slowly.  can anyone recommend otherwise?

If any one knows where i can find low temp powder please post up!

ducpainter, thanks for the tip, i thought it wasn't a big deal as long as i wore gloves, but further research says that your much better off donning gloves and washing your hands with the gloves on to ensure that there is no oil as you handle the bare aluminum.

[Eddie_322]

some really good stuff here, Speeddog good point! That was a big flaw on my part. I will retest till failure. though id need to find thinner pieces cause i dont have more than 75lbs of weights!

No need to re-test, there are volumes of info out there on this. Do a search. ASTM, ASME and others will have more info then you will need to know, and it will be repeatable, done in laboratory settings, not in someones kitchen.

There is no problem with the heat on aluminum. There are some colors of powder that will  cure at lower temps. I did a search on this years ago when I was getting a set of magnesium wheels done. White was the lowest temp at the time.

[He Man]

took weeks to get back to me, but for those who are interested marchesini doesnt PC any of their wheels.

"We don’t have a big experience on Powder coat. We suggest to use the liquid paint. This is what we use actually."-Marchesini.

[Oldfisti]

    No shit!      Veeeeery  interestink.


That r sum thick, tough liquid paint they're using there.

[Jarvicious]

I can't believe I managed to dig this thread up, but I though I remembered a pretty lengthy PC thread from sometime last year.

http://ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=6485.0

I don't think you have to worry about how fast/slow you heat the metal up unless the wheel is extremely cold at the time you put her in the oven.  It's basically the same situation as when you run a really hot pan/dish under really cold water, so as long as the rims are around about room temp, you should be fine. 

+1 on keeping your greasy little mitts of the metal once you've had them blasted.  I've only done a few things in my time where I really wanted to yield a good finish, but each thing I painted ended up having problems with the final finish due to a lack of prep.  Prep prep prep!  If you're wiping the piece down just before you coat and you still have some residual grunge on the rag, redo it.  Like DP said, even a little finger grease can put a wrench in the works. 

Edit:  Just saw that you brought that thread back last month anyway.  I'm out of the loop 

[He Man]

   No shit!      Veeeeery  interestink.


That r sum thick, tough liquid paint they're using there.

no sheet is da right wurd two say all right.

I finger banged a 1098R, dem wheels were warm to the touch, almost swore it was PC since it was thick as walrus.

[ProTeal55]

Sorry I got into this thread so late.
I work for a very well known custom wheel manf. and we sell powdercoated wheels all day long (and have been for years). All of our wheels are manf. out of T-6061 Alum, polished, and then powdercoated.
We have never had a failure period, let alone one caused by the powdercoating process.

As the thread says, I think results from powdercoating (good or bad) is all based on what material is being coated, who is doing it, the prep work involved before coating, etc..

[bluemoco]

How many of you guys have PCed their wheels?
What type of wheels do you have?
Does PC'ing wheels cause the integrity of the metal to weaken?

Some people say it will, some people say it wont, and i can't seem to find any real events of wheels that were PCed that broke without some sort of outside stress (hitting a curb....etc)

I had no hesitations about getting my wheels powdercoated.  I have Marchesini wheels, taken from a Monster S4 Senna.  The wheels were red when I bought them, and I had them powdercoated in a low-gloss black.  Since the powdercoated wheels were installed, I have ridden about 7000 miles on them.

I have no empirical evidence that suggests powdercoating has weakened these Marchesini wheels.  As long as the process heat isn't excessive (as noted previously in this thread), you should have no problems running powdercoated wheels.