Made a thread this afternoon before the forum did something and it disappeared. But I picked up a set of 17’s over the summer, which I really like aside from the color they are. The previous owner had them powdercoated “bronze”, and they didn’t do an especially good job because a lack of metal flake makes them look like more of a glossy brown, and the finish is cracking and chipping in places.
Over the winter I would like to repaint them, but I’m not sure about how to prep them. The powdercoat is chipped in a few places, and shows signs of cracking in others, so I’m worried about it causing problems underneath the new finish.
If the powder wasn’t failing, you could scuff and base/clear them with autobody paint. But since its already cracking, that means it was under cured and probably put on way too heavy, so it will just continue to happen over time. The chips would have to be filled with body filler and sanded flush then spot primed, then scuffed and painted.
But that’s a lot of “band aid” work.
The right way is to strip the wheels… removing tires at $20-30 or whatever at a tire shop is the least of your worries/expense.
Powder is an absolute pain in the ass to blast because of the thickness of the coating and the strength of powercoating itself. Nothing less than 180+cfm of air supply behind an industrial pressure pot blaster will even touch the coating, and even with a big nozzle its a 30-60min+ per wheel blasting job.
Then I found chemical stripper. Aircraft stripper will not remove it, it just softens it up after 3-5 applications, no other over the counter stripper will remove powdercoating. period. There is one that does, its $500 for 33 gallons (enough to submerse a wheel in a container)… dip it in 30 mins later pull it out and it all falls off. Its EXTREMELY dangerous, Me, Yetti, and Nick have scars to prove it from splash back but its the only thing that works. I dont have any left myself because I took the winter off more or less from shop work. Contact Madwabbit on here he may have bought more stripper since we worked together last.
Once its stripped you have two choices. Prime/sand/base/clear whatever autobody color you want, Nick (madwabbit) can take care of that for you and do an awesome job at that. Or pick another powder color and I can shoot them again for you. $95 a wheel is my rate for a single shot color but that includes blasting/stripping, once stripped they still need to be blasted but just a low pressure quick once over to clean and re-profile the surface so I can do that and coat them in a single stage color for $65 a wheel.
That about covers it any more questions feel free to ask.
Fffffffuuuuuuuuuuu. You pretty much just confirmed exactly what I was worried about. Its funny you mention it being laid on too heavy, the chips the have come off look a solid .5mm thick, I originally thought it was a chunk of spot putty. They are only a set of TSW’s that I got for $200 (likely because of the finish), so I don’t know how much I’m willing to throw at them. They look great on the car, are pretty light (weigh the same or less than the stock wheels), and are supposedly pretty strong for a cast wheel.
It sounds like I might be better off just chipping off everything that’s loose, then sanding/filling/sanding some more before a repaint, at least to see how they look in a color I like. I was hoping to use these as a sort of “winter project” that I could pop down to the basement for an hour and work on every so often.
Your prices are more than fair, especially considering the quality of work I’ve seen and how much of a bitch these are gonna be. And if I do decide to hang onto these for a long time, or I buy some nicer wheels, I’ll probably go that route, but for now it just doesn’t quite make financial sense.
Thanks for the info, I really wanted to get some insight from somebody who has actually worked with powder before.
Yeah there isnt an easy way around it really. If they arent going to be show pieces and your willing to put in the elbow grease, then just scuff and shoot them. Get some light weight body filler and fix the chips, I would even skim the cracks too… maybe even take a bullet shaped die grinder and carefully open up the crack in the PC to put a bit of filler in there to level it out again.
Scuff it with 320 once your “body work” is done and light coat of sandable primer on the repairs then 600 grit or scuffy pad the whole wheel then, grease and wax remove wipe and get painting.
GL man, any other questions always feel free to ask.
