Before I even begin my post I want to mention that I'm making this thread to try to have an intelligent conversation on TST. That seems to be quite difficult on this forum lately so please help me out here. I don't want this to become a pissing match...period.
With that being said, I wanted to discuss what people's opinions are on whether powder coating a wheel
can actually weaken the wheel through the baking process.
I've done a lot of reading on the subject and have heard both sides of the arguement. Unfortunately for me I'm not educated enough in the science behind forging and heat treating.
The
theory is that baking a wheel (from what I've read apparently forged wheels seem to be more susceptible) in the powder coating process
can weaken the alloy by changing the molecular structure. Now, also from what I've read it depends on many different variables; such as the wheel construction, how the wheel was heat treated, as well as what the powder coating oven temperature is set at, ect.
I did find this article among many that I read that I found interesting...
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show....php?t=1793970
This is of interest to me because I just recently had to decide on how I was going to go about painting my wheel centers. Originally I was going to have them powder coated and be done with it. But the more I looked into it and read about it, the more I started to wonder if that's the route I should take. The major downside to having rare wheels is replacing parts (lips, barrels, centers, caps, etc.) can be
very difficult. And I'm not sure I could even replace one of my centers if one was damaged. Since my centers are forged the last thing I wanted to do was
possibly weaken them. As a result I decided to have them painted at a body shop. But I decided that for a couple other reasons too. Firstly, although this paint wouldn't be nearly as durable as powder coating, it's a lot easier to touch up. I just need to buy some touch up paint in the color code of what I was using. Secondly, I already had a car color in mind that I wanted them painted, so obviously that's easy to match when you're having them painted by a body shop. And lastly (this wasn't a deciding factor in my decision, but it
was nice after the fact, LOL) it was pretty cheap.
I wanted to get people's opinion on the subject. And I am in NO WAY putting powder coating wheels down. I just decided to take
my wheels in a different direction. That also doesn't mean I think powder coating wheels is a bad idea either. Like I said, I'm not educated enough to determine that. So again, don't make this a bitch fest please.