New Wheel Vintiques Steelies - blast and powdercoat or just paint.??

[kitsbeach]

Just got myself a set of steelies from Wheel Vintiques. The powder coat guy around here always seems to insist that I sandblast (or media blast) pieces before he powdercoats them, due to "welding slag" or whatever.

How have your wheels held up without blasting and powdercoating.?

I've heard of rust appearing in a pretty short time on some people's parts and I know a buddy with reproduction parts on his '56 Chevy that are all rusting after 5-6 years.

I want to do things right but, on the other hand, I don't want to spend money on my low-buck build if I don't have to.

They are nicely painted right now brand new out of the box, so the other option is to paint them the color I want (white to match bumper and grill).

And do people powdercoat over paint.? I could get the powder coat guy to do that. Otherwise I'll find someone else to paint them.

Keep in mind it is pretty wet up here in Vancouver, Canada.

[cdowns]

have you checked to see if those wheels are not already powdercoated?

[kitsbeach]

Originally Posted by cdowns

have you checked to see if those wheels are not already powdercoated?

They are already powder coated it was just wondering about quality/whether it will last.?

But after I wrote the post I thought maybe I should just paint them and drive them and see if they hold up. The guy wants $25-30 to powder coat them and about the same to blast them. I may as well drive them and, if they rust, blast them then.

[sierragrande71]

Hey I got the same wheels but in 15x10 just got them the other day. Gonna get them powder coated in gloss back here in a few days!

[leddzepp]

Drive them as-is. When they start to look haggard, spray bomb them. Easy, low buck, and looks great.

[stomper]

Les schwab tire does powdercoat for $25 ea. I would think a good rattle can job would be fine on those tho. They're brand new from a reputable place.

[davepl]

A good powder coater will do the blasting himself. It really should be steam/acid acid washed BEFORE so that the blasting pass isn't just grinding grease into the metal to later bake out.

Ideally you bake the part in the over first to bubble out impurities. There are a lot of places to hide in a wheel like that.

On other hand, it's just a wheel. And no, you'd never powder over paint.

[sboris]

Just use their coating as a primer base. Scuff it good with a scotch brite pad, and rattle can 2 or 3 coats of your desired sheen or color. You can do this. Did this on mine, came out beautiful. Keeps in the low budget theme, with not alot of work Reblasting or paying someone.

[john@thepier]

If you want metal with paint on it to last longer, a lot longer then you should paint the bare metal with epoxy primer first. With powder coating rust spreads out underneath the paint. Think I'm wrong? Go look at all the snowplow frames around your area, or anywhere for that matter, all rusted because they use the easy less expensive powder painting. Epoxy paints is what they use in corrosive environments so just think how it lasts on wheels and everything else metal. Every part I refinish on my trucks builds starts with a Blackbeauty blast followed by a hand sand to help with adhesion, sand blasting alone dose not give metal a super surface for paint to adhere to, and then sprayed in epoxy and your choice of topcoat. You can hit it with a hammer and expose just a bit of bare metal that can eventually rust, but the rust dose not spread under the paint. John

[jocko]

If you don't like the current color, my personal preference is to pc all my wheels, not use beauty rings (caps only), and to always see if the tire/wheel combo can be balanced with weights on the inside lip only. I've yet to see a tire shop that could not do this, and I think it looks a little cleaner. PC over PC isn't so great unless THOROUGHLY scuffed before re-coating. Had a coater mistakenly do 5 of mine in black when they were supposed to be white... Ugh. But, re-done, they lasted pretty well.

Anyway, steelies are the way to go in my book - enjoy em!

[kitsbeach]

Thanks you guys.! I've decided then. A good sand/scrub and a rattle can then. Same as we would have done in the old days.