I blame you Dr Boost.

Emilio @ 949 Racing specifically says to not powdercoat the 6ULs.

I powdercoated my FD RX7 wheels. I haven't died yet, and these are even the "hollow spoke" fragile variants.

<--- I have ~40K miles on the powder coated wheels on my Focus. Most of it DD service but there were a few HPDE weekends.

...and I've been told stories about factory Mazda wheels breaking after powdercoating. You know what they say, the plural of anecdote is not data. I did my own research. The science is enough to make me shy away from powdercoating a T6 wheel in a critical high-stress application, but I'm okay with it where there's a big margin for error and different alloys involved.

plasti-coat instead of powdercoating ... change color any time you want

The subject of damaging wheels by coating them has been creeping up in my mind lately. I have only anecdotal evidence but I feel that powdercoating softens alloy wheels.

I have PC'ed a few dozen sets. I always choose powders that cure at low temps, so instead of a 425 cure for 20 min I choose ones that cure at 325 for 10-15. On more than one occasion I have had people come back with replacement wheels to get color matched because after a year one or two were bent. I just thought driver error or bad roads until I did a set for my GTI. The BEEFY, heavy OEM 16's were perfect 50 mile takeoffs. I coated them and on two the finish didn't turn out well so I redid them.

Fast forward a year or two and those wheels are garbage. A light curbing from my wife resulted in half an inch of wobble on one and a pothole did even worse damage on another. Those two wheels were the ones that were coated twice. The wheels that weren't heat cycled twice still have noticeable runout. I can hit the lip with a hammer and leave a dent that the same blow won't damage a factory finished wheel next to it.

Years ago I powdercoated the Panasports on my Fiat and dropped one while loading them up to get tires mounted. It left a pretty big ding in the lip that I was able to knock back out pretty easily with a hammer. At the time I just thought "That's odd. Perhaps pana's are softer than the average wheel" These days I wonder if I was just annealing them in the oven.

Again, this is just anectdotal evidence. I have no rockwell tester to back this up. If I did I would test an OEM wheel, fire up the oven and bake it for half an hour and retest. That would be all it takes to be sure.

My kit came from Eastwood today!!! I'm swamped 'till Sunday morning though. I'll try to PC something then.

In reply to ditchdigger:

Ok GRM sounds like a tech article in the making to me. I bet you could even get Tire Rack to source the wheels for you.

Edit now that I'm on a computer and not a phone.

How would you destructively test something like that? Is there a pressure gauge that would test the breaking point of a wheel? One of you engineering types has got to have something that will do that.

10 wheels. Break 5 as delivered. Break 5 after powder coating.

DrBoost wrote: My kit came from Eastwood today!!! I'm swamped 'till Sunday morning though. I'll try to PC something then.

I hate it when new toys come in and I'm too busy to play with them.

Toyman01 wrote:

DrBoost wrote: My kit came from Eastwood today!!! I'm swamped 'till Sunday morning though. I'll try to PC something then.

I hate it when new toys come in and I'm too busy to play with them.

Dooood it's killing me!!! I won't even unpack it yet. I did take the catalog out of the box to drool over, but I won't even know if it's complete or not 'till Sunday. Ahhhhhhh!!!!

Toyman01 wrote: How would you destructively test something like that? Is there a pressure gauge that would test the breaking point of a wheel? One of you engineering types has got to have something that will do that. 10 wheels. Break 5 as delivered. Break 5 after powder coating.

Much simpler that all that

A Rockwell hardness tester will tell you if the alloy was softened or hardened by the cure bake.

...I opened it....
Now waiting will be that much harder.

In reply to DrBoost:

Whoops, now you're in trouble. I foresee someone sneaking out to the garage late one night.

Here is my $70 setup:

Yes, that is an electric turkey roaster. It was much bigger than any toaster oven I could find. Should work for smaller items.

For a while my favorite powder was the "patented ultimate chrome" single stage from powderbuythepound.com. So easy to use and always turned out flawless

Other colors

This stem I made for my bike was done in an eggshell texture off white

Actually everything on the bike that color is

I think these calipers are just Harbor Freight gloss red powder

In the oven:

And Done!

It's not perfect, but it's good enough.

I love this stuff. I'll be powder coating everything under the sun now.

I haven't done any wheels yet (might buy a JY wheel to practice with when i get my oven) but yeah, I'm powedercoating anything I can.
I'm going to try glass and some plastics soon.....

That wheel looks nice. You said it would be $150 for the set for you to do them. Is that just the cost of the powder, or are you including everything you've purchased so far?

In reply to DrBoost:

Powder: $17

Gun: $50

Oven: $50

Blast Sand: $20

All in I've spent a little under $150.

The satisfaction of doing it myself, Priceless.

Edit: I actually bought 2 pounds of powder, so $32. I probably won't use half of it. A little powder goes a long way.

Here's what I have spent so far
Starter PC kit: $105
Sand blast cabinet and 200 lbs of media: $150
Oven (when I get one): $50
toaster oven for small stuff: $10 IIRC

So I'll have about $300 into the whole setup including the blast cabinet. But I have what I expect to be nearly a lifetime supply of blast media and 2 lbs of powder. Just the stuff I plan on coating from the 944 would cost me that much to have coated.

One more thing. Did you de-gass the wheels?

I'm so jealous it hurts. Can't wait to get home and explain to SWMBO why I'm buying an oven for the garage.

Also the wheel looks great.

DrBoost wrote: One more thing. Did you de-gass the wheels?

30 minutes at 250 degrees. Then sprayed the powder while it was still warm. Then 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

DrBoost wrote: Here's what I have spent so far Starter PC kit: $105 Sand blast cabinet and 200 lbs of media: $150 Oven (when I get one): $50 toaster oven for small stuff: $10 IIRC So I'll have about $300 into the whole setup including the blast cabinet. But I have what I expect to be nearly a lifetime supply of blast media and 2 lbs of powder. Just the stuff I plan on coating from the 944 would cost me that much to have coated.

Subtract out the blast cabinet/sandblast rig, which I already had, and we are about even. The setup will pay for itself, just in doing the wheels. Money ahead if you ask me. I've got a ton of stuff I'm going to be powder coating.

Not to mention, in the planning stages of tearing down the RX-7 for a re-power/restore. Not having to pull out the spray paint rig is worth a bunch because I hate painting.

I owe you a beer or 12 for starting me down this path. Thanks!

Tell you what, I'll trade you the 12 beers you owe me for permission to pick your brain since you're quickly ahead of me on this stuff.
How much powder to do 4 wheels do you think you used/are going to use?

In reply to DrBoost:

Probably about a pound for all four. Maybe a little more.

I have a garage oven, I just bought the Harbor Freight media blaster, now I am looking for an Eastwood powder coater.

I have several sets of wheels to do first.

Anybody got leads on custom powder colors?