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Wheel colours

Which one do you like?


  • Total voters
    24
  • Poll closed .

Wedders

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In winter I’m having my wheels powder coated but i can’t decide on the colour.
 

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If we didn't live on different continents, I'd just trade you my black wheels for your silver ones.
 
Yep black for sure. I keep lots of oil on my chain and there can be issues with it getting on my rear rim.
 
Sorry I forgot to add in the poll, and it won’t let me edit it now. If you vote “other” please specify below the colour you like.
 
Sorry I forgot to add in the poll, and it won’t let me edit it now. If you vote “other” please specify below the colour you like.
I voted other. I would chose anything besides black. There is already a lot of black on the motorcycle. If you’re painting the wheels, make them a color that adds interest to the motorcycle. Black is a non-color.
 
In winter I’m having my wheels powder coated but i can’t decide on the colour.
Not to open up a huge can of worms here, but most common powder coats require a cure at relatively high temperatures that has the potential to affect the strength and durability of aluminum (400F). What the impact is would be nearly impossible to determine so it might be totally fine, but I would recommend looking into coats that use a lower temp cure. I've seen some advertised in the 200-250F range that may be more suitable. YMMV.

Anecdotally, people coat aluminum wheels at "standard" temp cures all the time and don't appear to have any problems linked to the process, but from a material science perspective, there is a known impact, though extremely difficult to define/calculate/quantify without test coupons to replicate some of the smaller sections of the wheel.
 
If it was me, I'd go with the same color as the frame on a silver bike.
I might just do up a set in that color as I have a set of spare wheels and pop them on my buddy's silver bike.

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Those red do look good. I keep going back forth between doing red or not. How do they do with getting dirty? Do you have to clean them a lot? I'd be on the streets but I ride in the rain and snow a lot. Did you do it yourself or take it somewhere to get done?
 
Not to open up a huge can of worms here, but most common powder coats require a cure at relatively high temperatures that has the potential to affect the strength and durability of aluminum (400F). What the impact is would be nearly impossible to determine so it might be totally fine, but I would recommend looking into coats that use a lower temp cure. I've seen some advertised in the 200-250F range that may be more suitable. YMMV.

Anecdotally, people coat aluminum wheels at "standard" temp cures all the time and don't appear to have any problems linked to the process, but from a material science perspective, there is a known impact, though extremely difficult to define/calculate/quantify without test coupons to replicate some of the smaller sections of the wheel.
Cast alloy wheels are not made from heat treatable aluminum alloys. The main alloying element in the alloys used for cast wheels is silicon. As such these are quite stable materials and powder coating at 200degC (if that is the case) for short duration is not going to cause significant microstructural changes to the alloy. I wouldn't worry.
 
Cast alloy wheels are not made from heat treatable aluminum alloys. The main alloying element in the alloys used for cast wheels is silicon. As such these are quite stable materials and powder coating at 200degC (if that is the case) for short duration is not going to cause significant microstructural changes to the alloy. I wouldn't worry.
What specific alloy, do you know? All the alloys I'm familiar with (including 300 series Si alloys) are all heat treatable.
From my understanding, the 200 series (Principal Cu) alloys are more suitable for high temperatures than most alloys, but would still be negatively affected at the temperatures required for common coat bakes.
Even 400 series Si alloys list a maximum temperature of 180C (350F).
I don't really deal with automotive wheels, so there's a good chance I don't know much about the specific alloys used for that application. I'm much more familiar with aerospace metals.
 
Some info here. https://matmatch.com/resources/blog/aluminium-car-wheels/

Mainly an equivalent of 356. Looks like it can be heat treated. but often isn't at least in Europe. I am surprised as I spent some time with a manufacturer (Montupet) and they didn't heat treat, although that was quite a few years ago.
My understanding was they used an almost eutectic binary Al-12wt%SI alloy for exceptional fluidity. I doubt the mech props are going to be impacted significantly. If they were there would be evidence of failures. Anyway interesting topic.
 
In aerospace, 356 is used almost exclusively in the T6 (HT and artificial aged). I believe this is fairly applicable to general usage of 356 as well, but I could be wrong.
From your article, the majority of cast wheels are 356-T6 especially in Japan and North America. I think the ageing usually takes place at 155C for a few hours. I believe they are susceptible to overaging, so there is the potential for negatively impacting mechanical properties when baking on coats, especially if the cure temp was 200C.
Now, how much it affects it, and whether that is an acceptable impact are impossible to calculate, and it is likely that the wheels would still be fine after baking.
For example, the wheels might be at 200C for less than an hour, and perhaps the properties would only be affected by a few percentage points. There is likely enough of a safety margin in the design that this would be fine.

I also found this, specifically talking about A356-T6 wheels. To note, on page they talk about a paint cure (note, paint not powder and I believe paint cure temps are lower than powder cure temps) and that if required, the paint/cure can be repaired (repeated) twice before melting the wheel and starting over, noting that each operation affects mechanical properties.
https://www.newarctech.com/cm/dpl/downloads/content/69/A356_Aluminum_Wheel_Facts.pdf

Again, I'm not saying baking a coat onto an aluminum rim is going to wreck it, I'm just saying there is a definite impact to mechanical properties, however of an unknown magnitude (and likely would be fine).
Just saying that the "safer" bet would be a low temp cure coat or a paint instead of a standard coat.
 
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