Mahle - Magnesium Gas Burners, Wheel Refurbisher wanted Options

[ConeDodger]

How long was the wait for Harvey to do his magic?

Nine months. He’s doing a second set of full polished with painted crests

[TravisNeff]

I did some more research today. I am curious about the process and if my initial thought that the finish is just paint, or there is something more to it.

Bob shared that a set that he saw had a blue primer. I found that there are many ways to prep mag for paint.

https://www.finishing.com/faqs/magnesium.shtml


Here is a soup to nuts refinish of some Ferrari mag wheels.

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/m...-options.62908/

[gereed75]

Not sure where I fall on this one. I have some first hand industrial experience with anodizing on aluminum and magnesium. I am sure Harvey is well equipped to anodize aluminum. It is a well known process and not “proprietary” and commonly done. The market is huge.

Likewise for mag, but the market is much smaller so way fewer people do it - mostly only those serving critical aerospace applications. I seriously doubt that Harvey does anything close to a full blown Dow 7 conversion coat process, even less likely that he does Dow 17 anodizing. Both of these processes are environmental and regulatory nightmares. I would suspect that these wheels were not anodized even by Mahle - most likely conversion coated with one of the processes in Travi’s finishing link, primed and painted.

For most of our uses, a mechanical finishing method (blasting or abrasive pad) followed by a zinc chromate primer and then epoxy painting would result in a very good service life in our “non-critical” applications.

Doing a bit more research, if you insist on a conversion coating, here is a good one https://www.sanchem.com/magnesium-conversion-coatings.html. Not sure how available it is This is a non chrome bearing coating - chrome ones are highly regulated (bad carcinogens)

PS - the chance of ever igniting a mag wheel in a paint cure oven is zero.

[TravisNeff]

I read an article a long time ago that he does all the polishing, painting etc. and he subs the anodizing work out to a specialty shop and has them re-do them if it does not meet his expectations.

I too suspect that the Mahle factory used an etch primer to seal the surface based on the "blue primer" comment, but who knows.

[gereed75]

It would make sense that Harvey ( and others) farm out anodizing. It is a capital and regulatory intensive process

[ConeDodger]

I read an article a long time ago that he does all the polishing, painting etc. and he subs the anodizing work out to a specialty shop and has them re-do them if it does not meet his expectations.

I too suspect that the Mahle factory used an etch primer to seal the surface based on the "blue primer" comment, but who knows.

Harvey farms out anodizing. It is indeed an aerospace guy...