painting mesh rims..

[driftke70]

because oem wheels are deliberately made well over their strength ratings.

ive seen a standard skyline wheel take a 2 foot section out of a curb and have only a few abrasion marks, and ive seen someone pull into a driveway a bit quick with a dished wheel and flat spot it.

Wheels are hardened not for an hour or two in manufacture, sometimes days. At very specific temperatures and a very specific climb in temperature.

Alloy as a metal, is basically always just chilling waiting for an opportunity to change. Compared to iron which will stay the same for years and years and years.
Im not one to give alloy that opportunity.

There might not be that many cases on the internet of failings as they probably fail when they hit something and 99.9% of the time people will assume it broke because of what they were doing. If you have a look in a few racing series like jgtc and gt3 cup and the hard core euro hill climbing stuff they dont allow wheels to be powder coated unless from the factory.

In which case the factory would have allowed certain tolerances within their design or hardening process to accept the temperature effects of powder coating.

But what I was saying earlier, is all this aside, i think it gives a shit finish.

[driftke70]

not quite, some alloy is almost like chalk, some is more pure.
hence if you get a new volt shitty 21 inch chromed wheel and sand it back, the likelihood of being able to get a mirror finish polish is essentially zero.
if you bang it, it will chip and show a rough surface.

something like a bbs or ssr or rays will dent and if torn show a smooth shiny surface.

not only are their make ups different (there are literally thousands of alloy variants) but the way they respond to heat treating dependent on nickel contents and the likes will vary greatly.

[ke70dave]

hmm you make some valid points. and yer i am well aware of the varients of aluminium alloys.

good point about the oversized OEM wheels, id not considered that.

all interesting stuff.

i wonder though, what the difference is between the material used in the centre of the wheel, compared to the "rim".

since we are only talking about powder coating the centres. the centres would have been cast like that, where as im not sure how the rim bit would have been made. possibly forged?

[driftke70]

dry forged outers most likely with some rotary forging to get them true.

You can tell when they are machined as they have those groves in them, like a really fine zig zag shape over the surface.

the centers would be cast and machined.

[driftke70]

also im not saying noo never do it id rather die than powdercoat my wheels,

i did it once, and can see why people do it.

but I personally would never do it again.

[john84ie]

heres the finished product anyway,before and after..

[Sam-Q]

looks great, well done