Wheel refinishing: Powder or paint?
 

Just picked up some 16" phone dials (Thanks OTR18WHEELER). Now need some suggestions.

I spoke to my painter and he is steering me towards powder coating. He says for the money the powder coating is not much more and will be smoother and more durable. He doesn't blast, hand sands so maybe he is getting lazy. The local coating shop says they have a few different silver colors to choose from.

Wonder how they will look without clear over the paint? Can you clear coat a powder coated rim? Do they do that? Any real world experiences on this subject would be appreciated.

I had my rims powder coated many years ago. The finish seems to be a lot more durable, but it's near impossible to touch it up.

Powder. I painted mine, and I would say I did a good job. Sanded, painted, cleared. All looked good. Tire shop chipped the crap out of them and I had to repaint a 2nd time to mount on car. This ment resanding and taping cause the dummies at my tire shop cared little. Get a quality job done and save yourself some time.

They can apply a PC clear coat. I think they half bake the base color coat, then apply the clear and bake it all the way.

If you have them painted by a shop, it will be quite durable and, as Nicole mentioned, much easier to repair/touch up.

IIRC, our local AWRS franchise charges about $175 per wheel for minor curb repair and refinishing. For a whole set, they send them off to their facility. It takes a couple of weeks and you don't have to pay extra for shipping.

Just an add-on inquiry that is sort of relevant to the OP's question: Can Porsche alloy wheels (eg: 10-spoke Panamera) be stripped, polished and then clear-coated as opposed to silver paint? Anyone done it or know the answer?

Definitely powdercoat over paint. As your guy said, smoother and much more durable finish.

I had the Champion RS171 on my 997 stripped of their silver paint, then fully polished, and clear powdercoated. The clear powdercoat knocks down a little of the high-gloss shininess, but means I never had to repolish the raw metal to keep them looking the same way.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...15985c8731.jpg

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The powdercoater needs to be very careful about the temperature at which he cures the powder as overheating the wheels, can weaken the structure. Do some googling on that topic so you can give him a max temperature threshold you want him to use for curing.

Here are some of our work painted, how's about this for smooth..... I included high resolution photos so you can see the clear SMOOTH finish on these bad-boys.




https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...a22e16ad0d.jpg

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Yes I am definitely leaning towards powder. Need to confirm they will do the clear 1/2 bake deal.

I wonder what half bake actually means. Full time at half the temperature or half time at full temperature or something else?

Very nice! Do you do the work or is it sub-contracted? The reason I ask is the "refinishing" link on your page takes me to Fast Forward Wheels. Was thinking about having the calipers done a couple months ago when I saw your pictures but now thinking of a caliper & Cup I package deal.

I like painted better- for refinishing to like original finish. PC looks too "built up".

Im just about to get a set of refinished phone dials back- painted. They didnt powder coat in 1981

My preference is paint. Powder-coat to me always looks a bit phony-- color not right, finish a bit off. The problem is that wheels are hard to paint-- lots of intricate shapes and not much of the flat surfaces that painters love to paint. So if you ask a car painter for a quote on painting wheels, more likely than not he will recommend a good powder-coat guy. Powder-coat is easy on weirdly-shaped surfaces.

Find a good wheel refinisher and ask them. There are not nearly as many as car painters, but wheels are easy to ship. After sending a few sets to LA for refinishing, we finally found someone closer who "gets it".

Here's our RUF wheels, on the GT in Vermont last summer. The wheels are the correct silver for late 928s, the wheel painter got that right. The center-caps are a different paint code, for later-model Porsches, I didn't get that right. I think those subtleties are lost on most PC guys.

Attachment 1168957

I can vouch for the quality of the Wheel Dynamics work. It's show-quality stuff.

I and some others have had a different experience with Wheel Dynamics, but things seem to be better more recently.

I sure wish I had kept my speedlines that were on my 85, same as yours Jim. Just lovely wheels, but they would not clear the calipers on my 87.

Back to the topic paint or PC. I think it also depends on the wheel. I had my speedlines painted with a polished lip and they held up well. I did the same on my cup 1's, but due to the fact that the spokes of the wheel are out farther on the cup 1's, they get peppered with more road crap and have chipped up pretty good over two seasons.

For this reason I would PC, as far as centre caps go, the best solution is to buy a set of original aluminum caps and have them coated to match. I hate the newer plastic caps.