Powder coating

I made a trip to a local powder coater today to get some prices powder coating the extra set of wheels as well as other chassis components.  I was was pleasantly surprised with what they told me.  They had a pretty wide selection of not only colors, but also textures.  I was given a quote of $50 per wheel for powder coat and $55/hr for any sandblasting.  The fork legs were only $20 each.  I have a sandblast cabinet, but the gun has been giving me a lot of problems and it isn’t really big enough to hold a wheel, so i may just have them do the sand blasting.

One thing they did warn me about with older aluminum is that it can outgas when baked in the oven causing small imperfections in the surface.  In that case, it has to be cleaned up and coated and baked again (unless you want to live with the imperfections).  It is hard to predict but it is a possibility.

Right now I am planning to have the wheels blasted and coated white (like the factory wheels).  They had an interesting black textured coating that would look great on the exhaust and also potentially the front fork legs.  I haven’t decided on that yet.  One alternative to the powder coat is a Cerrakote which is a firearm finish.  It is not nearly as thick as powder coating so I am not sure how it would hold up on something like wheels and fork legs, but it could work well on other chassis members.