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Posted by: Aaron Cox Jul 17 2006, 11:00 PM

hey guys, i need to strip some wheels completely for powdercoating... 8 total. one set, will be powdercoated all the way around... while the second set, want to retain a polishable lip....

what media should we use? sand? glass bead?

what grit rating???

4 15x7 cookies and 4 15x5.5 4lug fuchs....

Posted by: Matt Romanowski Jul 17 2006, 11:14 PM

I would probably use glass. Every supplier seems to have a different rating system (at least around here). I would start with medium - fine and work from there.

Matt

Posted by: Aaron Cox Jul 17 2006, 11:20 PM

cookie cutters have been blasted before (thanks SLITS ) with a glass bead.. but didnt fully get all the factory epoxy paint suff off....

so no rough sand?

Posted by: KaptKaos Jul 18 2006, 12:26 PM

Posted by: bondo Jul 18 2006, 01:55 PM

I've used aircraft stripper and a wire brush on cookies. Takes a few days but works. That paint is some amazing stuff.

Posted by: Headrage Jul 18 2006, 01:58 PM

When I had my Pedrinis done the guy used soda.

Posted by: Aaron Cox Jul 18 2006, 02:11 PM

you are telling me!! yeah, i bought these wheels from felix, who got em from bill pickerings race car... so they had bills cool yellow and black paint, on top of the factory epoxy stuff....

took an hour per wheel i swear with glass bead at slits's place... and not all of it came off...


so sand is tooo rough?
AA

Posted by: TonyAKAVW Jul 18 2006, 02:49 PM

Remember that the powder goes on pretty thick, so minor surface impercections especially those that are random won't show up so badly. If you have 1/2 mm deep pits though that would probably be too much.

-Tony

Posted by: Aaron Cox Jul 18 2006, 02:56 PM

so would sand be too rough?

Posted by: Eric_Shea Jul 18 2006, 03:05 PM

YES...

Do not use sand or glass. I had a spare (thank god it was the spare) that we glass bead blasted. It ruined the wheel. It sorta polished out but... Jim Chambers may still have it as the spare. Maybe he could post the rough stuff.

I've used plastic with decent results but my choice would be soda. You can also take them to a platers and they can remove most of the anodization etc with an acid bath. They really have to know what they are doing though.

Posted by: Aaron Cox Jul 18 2006, 03:07 PM

bah! lameness.....

soda or walnut shell or plastic bead.....
where can i get a sack of the above mentioned media?

Posted by: Headrage Jul 18 2006, 03:10 PM

Where are you going to do it? Rons?

My guy did mine for $20.00.

Prolly cost more for the soda...

Posted by: SLITS Jul 18 2006, 03:11 PM

A media blaster supply house young engineer! Plus, the cabinet you use must have the proper orifice in the gun for the material used.




Yellow pages or MSN yellow pages works wonderfully for finding stuff.

Posted by: Aaron Cox Jul 18 2006, 03:11 PM

allan, when can you come get the wheels?

Posted by: SLITS Jul 18 2006, 03:24 PM

Hell Aaron, just get your SO Matt to do the bump and grind for you like he always does and stick sandpaper to his ass.....the wheels will be done in no time.

Posted by: Headrage Jul 18 2006, 03:25 PM

Depends how soon you need them.

Posted by: Aaron Cox Jul 18 2006, 03:31 PM

Slits is a comical mother today......

well, kaptkaos' friend has a sanblaster and we thought he could take care of that for us... but it doesnt look like it.....

Allan - it was only 20 bucks to have the wheels done? im sure joe and i would be interested in that....

sounds like a trip to bakers tucky is in order

Slits - thanks again for letting em get blasted the first time

Posted by: Headrage Jul 18 2006, 03:35 PM

He charges $100.00 an hour but got them done in less that 15 minutes. Ergo, $20.00.

He has a big ass compressor and everything comes off really fast.

Posted by: Eric_Shea Jul 18 2006, 03:37 PM

Buy about 40 boxes of Arm & Hammer and dump it in there. Report back

Posted by: spunone Jul 18 2006, 03:40 PM

Whats wrong with having them chemical striped ie Burrlington eng in Orange CA they used to strip alum wheels for alot of suppliers before they chrome plate the alum go figure

Posted by: Aaron Cox Jul 18 2006, 03:42 PM

cost prohibitve im guessing

Posted by: roadster fan Jul 18 2006, 04:55 PM

I believe grassroots racing had a project 911 they redid the wheels on. IIRC, they used oven cleaner and elbow grease to prep the wheels. It removed the anodizing and paint.

dont have time to find the article online for ya, hope this helps.

Posted by: Gint Jul 18 2006, 05:02 PM

I would think that soda would take too long, but I haven't used it so...

I glass bead blasted this wheel and sanded and polished. And if I do say so myself, it was the very nicest polished Fuch I've ever seen. Still. So I don't know why you couldn't use glass if you're going to powder coat.

Posted by: Aaron Cox Jul 18 2006, 05:03 PM

what "grit" of bead did you use...

that looks like a "20 hour" wheel...

btdt...

Posted by: Gint Jul 18 2006, 05:07 PM

I don't remember. And I'll also say that my glass bead was pretty well used at that point, so it was likely very fine.

And this was the "30 hour" wheel.

But I kid you not, it would blind you if you let the sun reflect on it and you looked at it. This thing was BLING!

Posted by: KaptKaos Jul 19 2006, 09:53 AM

So it seems we don't have concensus on this yet, unless I am missing something.

Any other opinions on this topic?

Thanks.

Posted by: pete-stevers Jul 19 2006, 10:31 AM

i got some cookies i would like to spruce up......too......one day

Posted by: Jacco Jul 19 2006, 11:53 AM

Hey Aaron,

I've blasted these wheels with glass beads myself, no clue at how coarse, if you enlarge the pic you can see there's some roughness on the surface.
I simply painted over them with some filler primer underneath and a light sanding in between, they turned out rather nice.
If you want mirror finish you should go for something less coarse to save massive sanding time.

good luck

Jacco





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Posted by: Jacco Jul 19 2006, 11:55 AM

And the finished result,
(I know, not 914 wheels, but still volkswagen )




Attached thumbnail(s)

Posted by: KaptKaos Jul 19 2006, 12:00 PM

Those are the pirelli wheels that VW used only for a few years on the USA Wolfsburg models. Hard to find too. Nice looking wheels. How did you clean them up?

Posted by: p914 Jul 19 2006, 12:03 PM

Aaron
Plastic does a great job. I posted a long time ago on the Pboard how I did mine. @$20-25 per wheel and it gets all the anodization off and down to bare alloy.

They actually look good enough to mount when blasted without polishing.

Posted by: Jacco Jul 19 2006, 12:22 PM

yup they are, '83 and '84 only I believe, in Europe they came on the Golf 1 GTI(rabbit in usa?) and later on some Golf 2 model too I believe. I've got them mounted on my 84 Golf 2.

I first tried paint stripper to no avail, paint too friggin tough. Then I decided to use the media blaster we have at our faculty. The media was glass.

cheers
Jacco

:Hijack over:

Posted by: pete-stevers Aug 27 2006, 03:18 PM

aaron what the heck did you use?
let me know ...i want to redo my cookies.....purple

Posted by: pete-stevers Sep 3 2006, 01:17 PM

mike can you fill us in on how you got to that finish.....start to finish.....