Refurbishing alloy wheels

[Lopez]

Hi gang

Has anybody had a set of alloys refurbished?
Threads such as this on other forums are usually populated with replies like "I got a set done local m8 cost me £10 a rim" etc with absolutely no details of who, where or when this work was done, or any evidence of the quality of work and so on which leaves me somewhat sceptical.

I have some 14" 205 GTI wheels in need of refurbishing - I have been quoted £15 per wheel for blasting, or £35 per wheel blasted and powdercoated in silver, both by a local company.
If I go for the latter option I won't be able to effectively refurbish any kerb damage to the wheel rims that hasn't been taken out by the blasting by sanding it out etc - the company will literally be blasting and refinishing the wheels with no intervention from me in between.

So my questions are as follows really - in 2015, is this a reasonable price to be paying? And secondly, do I just get them blasted and then spend £35 odd on some silver celly and paint them myself (proper spray gun, not a rattle can), or is it better just to hand them over and let the company do the work wholesale - I'm effectively paying an extra £80 for the powdercoating over the blasting.

Opinions and experiences welcome!

[tdipd]

Is the kerbage bad on them? Is it out of the question to hit the kerb damage with a file or DA prior to sandblasting and powdercoat? or is the damage too bad for this and would need filled?

I've had rims sandblasted before at £10 a wheel (NI), and then DIY'd it from there.

That was chemical metal for the kerb damage, then smoothed off

Then from the gun, coat of etch-primer, 3 coats of high build, and 3 of silver, 3 of clear. This wasn't an issue for me as i already had the primers and clear coat, I just bought the silver from the paint mixers... possibly £35 a litre for the good stuff. (also bought stuff in the past at about £20)

You could also look into a 2 pack colour coat, which would remove the need for the clearcoat, however, I don't know if you can get metallic like that, Ive only ever bought flat paints in 2k for painting vans.


also, does anyone know if powdercoat will stick to a little bit of chemical metal? In which case you could sandblast them, repair the kerbage, and then send for powdercoating.

[tdipd]

google says JB weld (the regular stuff, not the quick dry) is good for powdercoating if in small patches; and chemical metal is suitable if its in a layer that is thicker than 2mm-ish, as it'll crack in the oven if the layer is very thin.

My experience of having parts powder coated is that it goes on pretty thick, and would cover veery minor defects

[welshpug]

don't forget that if you want an original finish on the 14" 1.6 gti wheels that the flat centre area is not painted, if the refurb guys do diamond cutting that's the ideal process to make them as they should be.

[Lopez]

To be honest the kerbing really isn't that bad, the 1.6 wheels are pretty robust- I could probably get away with doing the rims before taking them in, that's a good call.

I'm not overly bothered about the polished centres as these ones have been painted in the past and don't have them and I'm used to them looking like that now.