Just powercoated my 22 in antera rims. Unfortunately the plastic center cap can not be done this way. The guy that did it for me just painted it black. I took it back today as it looked terrible. I know that he cant powder coat it but is there anything else he can do with it. Would love any ideas. Thanks

 

Hate to be the one to tell you after the fact but PC is not really recommended for aluminum wheels. The 400+ baking process and pre-heating makes the aluminum wheel a little more brittle.

Powder coating also usually coats in orange-peal like flavor.

Powder coating usually is a real PITA to remove if you ever want to change the design of the wheel later on.

BJ

 

well that sucks. Im happy that the place I took it to didnt tell me that. Well im stuck with it now, any thoughts on the plastic cap lol

If i knew, i wouldnt have done that. sweet

 

Exactly, and that's really a F'd up thing to do to you, you spend the money to make your wheels black and at the end of it you come to find out that your cap cannot be painted to match, thus your rims are not completely black missing the whole point of what you wanted. It's like if they could only powder coat 3/4 of the rim black and told you of course you wouldnt have gone ahead and powdercoated the wheels. You are spending the money on your wheels to make your car look nicer, so you are expecting a quality job I think these performance stores are way worse than the stealers. Most of them are run by complete idiots IMHO. This is a really crappy thing, a shop should warn you about before taking your money and doing "half the job". I would be extreme pissed if something like that happened to me.

 

Ya i am mad about it, but lifes short. I am going to try to work it out with them. Hopefully something comes out of it. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

I have a friend who can possible help you out, he does excellent work.

BJ

 

I certainly not a metallurgist, but I have looked at this fairly extensively. Powder-coating cast aluminum wheels is probably not a big deal. Powder-coating forged aluminum (6061-T6) using high temperature curing is possibly an issue.

Champion suggests that you do not powder-coat their forged aluminum wheels. HRE offers factory finishes that include powder-coating; it is possible that HRE factors in the coating bake time into the manufacturing process of their wheels but they have not commented on this to my knowledge. The US military suggests powder-coating forged aluminum only in cases were the oven cure is considered as part of the manufacturing process.

There are lower temperature coatings and those should be fine but color selection is limited. Lots of people run wheels with high temperature (400 degrees F) coating without issue. You might try Speciailzed Coatings to see if they can help you.

Ralph Boothe makes metal center caps for several different wheels and, assuming they fit your wheels, they can be powder-coated for an exact match. This is what HRE recommends for their wheels.

I noticed you have 22" Antera wheels. I am pretty sure these are cast aluminum. I seriously doubt the powder-coating you applied impairs the structural integrity of your wheels.

 

spark,
thanks for the links and the helpful info. really appreciate it. ill call antera and find out what they are as i have no clue

 

Spoke with Eli of Fast Forward Wheels extensively about this already, with a combined total between him and his friend who has a sand-blasting company they sit a good 30+ years of metal and materals background and experience (In other words they do this for a living). Fast Forward does NOT OFFER PC for what they call obvious reasons.

I asked him to comment but he indicated he currently could not due to issues pending between him and 6spd. He did say he will not offer PC to his customers.

BJ,

 

So why is Eli Banned? I don't think he is the word of "god" because he runs an aftermarket place. from what I understand he has asked for a lot of advice from these forums as well as all of us, thus giving him no superiority (knowledge) over any of us. What I am trying to say he hasn't represented himself as a credible person IMHO.

 

LOL Mayor is new and Fastfowardwheels is banned possibly "ELI" might be completely wrong but LOL!

 

Can you explain in a bit more detail what he said. Am i risking myself by driving on them now? I believe they are cast alum which is supposedly better than forged but im still worried. thanks

 

There are plenty of opinions on this specific topic but, to my knowledge, zero published data/testing. So, we are left with extrapolating from the known properties of the materials.

Assuming the aluminum used is the industry standard of: 356-T6 or 356-T7 (cast) and 6061-T6 (forged). Both 356 and 6061 aluminum are heat treated (ageing) followed by air cooling to produce the T6/T7 temper. The 6061 T6 ageing is at 350 °F for approximately 8 hours, the 356 T6 ageing is 310 °F for 2-5 hours and the 356 T7 ageing is 440 °F for 7-9 hours.

The concern with typical powdercoating is the fact that oven temperatures are typically 400 °F and cure times can be as long as one hour. Excessive heat can "overage" the aluminum compromising strength. The problem is that we really do not seem to know just how much, if any, a typical powdercoating run "overages" the aluminum.

Equally concerning is the preparation used prior to application of the powdercoating. For example, sandblasting could introduce microfractures into the aluminum that, over time, could cause wheel failure. There was a catastrophic Dymag failure attributed to a small stamping made on the back of a single spoke. The area was slightly weakened, stress caused microfractures, microfractures became macrofractures, one spoke failed, the rest of the spokes then failed and the car crashed.

So, it is my opinion that properly done powdercoating is probably fine. Cast wheels are not exactly delicate and can probably be coated at 400 °F without issue. I am a bit more hesitant to coat forged wheels just because of the compromises made in the name of weight savings. Low temp powdercoating should probably be used whenever available. Opinions will vary but I am going to powdercoat a set of cast aluminum wheels.

 

that was a great response. thank you. im still a bit stressed out on this. any recommendations? should i just sell them lol

 

Still want to Powder Coat? Calipers gone South

From this image you can see how the PC cakes on the parts, not good at all....

Call "Eli" yourself, he'll answer your questions.