[DeTomaso] Campy ?Powder Coat? Code Needed

[JDeRyke at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/6/09 8:41:55 AM, apache34 at embarqmail.com writes:

> I dipped my original wheels (6) in 1990 or so and they came out of the 
> tank perfectly clean with a nice surface for painting. I then painted them a 
> 1992 Mercedes silver and after many years on the road they still look great 
> to this day. Nothing to it.
> 
Yup- painting is easy. The real problem in powder coating is the 350-375F 
degrees used to fuse the powder grains together into a continuous sheet. The 
high heat expands the very porous mag castings, opens up pores and stuff 
thats been trapped inside for decades bleeds out, ruining the coating. Even 
hot-tanking at 200+F won't reliably clean dirty, highly porous mag castings, 
which is why many powder coaters won't handle mag castings: too many do-overs. 
But if you find a shop that can do a good job on mag, the fusing 
temperature can also be used to simultaneously anneal the magnesium wheel and get rid 
of its slowly-accumulated internal stresses, so once done, its like a brand 
new casting again. This alone is worth the price of powder coating. But the 
whole process isn't something one can do correctly at home, usually... Good 
luck- J Deryke