Reply to "PAINTING MAGNESIUM WHEELS"

Dick,

The important thing to do, when dealing with magnesium and powder coating, is two fold.
1) use sealer on the wheels. Powder coaters should know about this! (Any that have done mag!)
2) Annealing.....COOL DOWN must be last job of the day, and sign an agreement with the coater that they do not expose the wheels once baked.....leave them sit in the oven over night to cooooooool. As slowly as possible, or you can reintroduce stress into the metal.

You may be able to get the job done on a holiday weekend...where they can spray them and let them sit while the oven is turned off and cools over a 3-4 day holiday.......that would be ideal in my books!

I used some sort of a BMW metallic silver rim color that my coater had used prior. Close to original but with some zing (bling?) to it? They look really nice.

The powder coater fought with the outgassing AND porous castings with my wheels.....so don't be surprised if they clean off the wheels and find the surface of the moon! Once they got the craters filled, AND they used a proper sealer for the powder coating things went much better!!!

Good luck!
Steve