MTFCA Forum

Pros and cons please, for wire wheels:
Paint or powdercoat?

Thanks,
Keith

Powder pros: Durable, covers all surfaces thoroughly without runs, not so prone to chipping, easy since it pretty much guarantees that you have to hire somebody else to do it. Much less labor if you're content with a blast-and-powder end result. Cheaper than equivalent quality paint job.

Powder cons: If you're looking for an exact color match it can be more difficult to get than with custom mixing paint. If you have pits that you don't want to show you need to work them over with a conductive filler like Lab-metal. Powder tends not to cover well (in a mil-thickness sense) on sharp edges.

Paint pros: Easy to get the desired color match and easier to retouch in the future. Paint products are more well suited if you want a glass-smooth finish.

Paint cons: Prone to stone chipping if the finished product isn't ideal. It's a multi-step process of at least blast, etch prime, 2K primer, and paint whereas powder is blast and powder not working out pits in either one. The sky is the limit on labor hours depending on how nice you want them to be and the further you go the more expensive materials you will need (though material cost pales in comparison to labor cost). Much-o labor to rework a wheel if you get runs.

Laced or Model T style? Might make a difference.

I always recommend paint when it comes to tunable wire wheels. The aggressive blast media that is often used prior to powder coating can leave stress risers in the spokes and lead to spoke breakage down the road.

Don’t figure the aggressive media would hurt a welded spoke wheel any... these spokes are typically much heavier

A couple more thoughts. Powder coating a wire wheel might make it difficult to turn a spoke nipple to true up a wheel in the future if the coating is too thick. Also, a friend had his Buffalos powder coated and found the coating to be slippery enough that the clincher tires slipped on the rim. He had to dismount the tires and scuff the coating.

If your wanting to powder coat T welded wire wheels, then yes. Works great. And advantage is coating is uniform, looks good, and cleans most easy as dirt and dust wipes freely from the polyester surface.

Of course, if the wheel is badly pitted, the 2mil powder coat won't fill. But around here, $65 gets your wheel bead blasted clean, and coated in what color you wish. More comfortable than doing it yourself, for me anyway, seeing enamel paint runs and globs, missing backside of spokes, with the gun while trying to slow spin the wheel is disgusting.

The last time I took a wheel in to be powder coated they hung it by a thin wire around the center so of course the powder coat did not stick in that area. I had to paint it. They also coated the part that fits on the hub and I had to sand that down almost back to bare metal so the wheel would fit correctly on the hub. Too bad they really did a beautiful job on the spokes.