In a message dated 4/19/01 8:19:04 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
owner-lro-digest@Works.Team.Net writes:
C. Marin Faure wrote:
> BUT..... can a commercial powder coating company match
> Limestone, or at least come close enough to where I don't
> care about the difference, and what do you do if a wheel gets
> whacked hard enough to damage the powder coating? In the
> opinion of those of you who've had experience with both, is
> powder coating wheels better than painting them, or visa versa?
>
Yes, powder coat companies can get a very close match to Limestone. The
caveat with using powder coating is that if it gets damaged the spot will
tend to rust and undermine the surrounding coating. Also if the surface of
the part is not well prepared the coating will lift off and the same thing
can happen. The usual surface prep is to sand blast the part to bare metal.
The coating cannot be repaired because it involves electrostatically adhering
fine particles of a polymer material (there are several different types) then
baking the coating onto the part in an oven. If the coating will see
sunlight a polymer can have an anti-UV additive and in some cases a rust
resisting underlayer can be applied (for more $). In a nutshell, you end up
with a plastic coated part with a fairly durable coating that cannot be
repaired. The only way to hide damage is to fill in with several layers of a
similar color paint.
I have had several steel brackets for a canoe rack on top of our '66 SIIa
done with powder coating matching the limestone top at the vendor my
aerospace company has used for years. Even they had to redo one piece because
of peeling. I also noted our military customers prefer painting or anodizing
to powder coating for applications where they would expect rough conditions
in the field. So I opted to have the 16" steel wheels painted and will order
some small quantities of touch up paint for after the tire installation.
Hope this helps,
Karen Sindir
'74 SIII 88 Red Rufy
'66 SIIa 88 Barbaros
'95 Disco EFE
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 20 2001 - 05:05:37 EDT