I’m just about to refurbish a set of wire wheels for a XK120. Which is best powder coating or painting with two pack?
Depends: if you want an extremely durable and very even coating, powder paint is a marvelous product.
That said, at times, the palette of colors can be limited: if you like the colors offered, PP is easier and generally more durable than spray-on paint.
But if the spokes ever need to be trued (does anyone still do that anymore?), wouldn’t powder coating make it exceedingly difficult to turn the adjustment nuts?
Greetings All,
How do you plan to adjust spokes after the powder paint has oven cured?
I had the wire wheels for my 150 powder coated after they had been trued. Will be a long time before they need adjusting again. Beautiful job! Looks great!
I’m a painter. Frames, wheels… Paint works just fine.
Think about the abuse a wheel can take. Scratch the paint off the outside surface of a spoke. Now… touch it up so it matches. If you’re thinking about opening that can and masking off just a spoke, you can do that on the car.
Same issue exists, whether it be PP, or paint.
John, Do not powdercoat.
Powdercoating is something that should be avoided on a car restoration.
The powdercoat is usually a very thick (compared to spray paint job) coat of paint. It’s hard, and if chipped off you have bare (usually sandblasted) steel that just rusts beautifully.
On top, it’s not anti-corrosive in any way (unless you use a zinc powdercoat primer underneath, which makes it even thicker)
The way to go with car parts (especially suspension, wheels, etc) is electrophoretic paint. This is the paint that’s used on all modern cars on suspensions. 99% of the time it’s black, however it works as a very good (and very thin) layer of primer.
It has one flaw, and that is it’s not UV resistant. So, if the parts are exposed to sun, the paint will eventually fade. If you used it for parts under the car it’s fine, however if you use it for parts exposed to sunlight, paint it with a coat of colour of your choice.
One of the advantages of the electrophoretic paint is that it’s so thin that all of the parts markings are clearly visible once coated.
Tadek
My BIL just had a brand new steel '32 roadster body dipped this way. Gets in every crevice. Cost a fortune, somewhere in Canada.
The only disadvantage is it must be applied to bare steel as anything like filler won’t hold the charge. So, you must do bodywork after this coat is applied. This isn’t a bad thing, bit you do have to disturb it to do any serious panel work.
tadek
your comments on powder coating may have been correct 10+ years ago things have changed
powder coating is not as hard as it was and more importantly there is now a primer coat for powder coating.
thickness depends on applicator.
I will respond further
terry
PS been using powder coating for 45 years
I only became aware of it about 35 years ago, and I NEVER had any of it chip off.
I used it for the trailing arms on Formulas Vee, which get beat up by flying rock debris… never a chip. Dings, yea, but never a chip.
I may not be an expert, just had the bad experience.
However, do you know any modern automotive manufacturers that use powdercoating on any suspension parts?
Tadek
Nope, which is not to say there aren’t: likely it’s because of the relative time and expense of doing it.
Mass-produced cars are done * to get’em out the door,* fast and as inexpensively as possible.
So, it seems the general opinion is that if correctly applied there are distinct advantages of Powder coating over painting.
Thanks everyone very interesting.
John
Hello,
I agree to Roger´s comment. The pre process of powder coating is very important. In the discussion of banning 6 value chrome it got even worse, so you have to find an expert.
My suspension or whatever parts were/are powder coated and work without any complaint for years- pre process was yellow galvanizing.
And yes it is slightly thicker.
Thomas
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