Best blast media for alloy wheels?

[Rich200sx]

Hi,

Im wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction as to which blast media would be best used on alloy wheels.

Really looking at blasting for 2 different tasks,
one is to give a light quick key to the wheel which would be suffient for directly painting/lacquer the wheel, this is mainly to speed up the keying up stage on multi spoke alloy with no or minimal damage?

Second use is to use something aggressive enough to stip back flaky paint and corrosion.

I currently use ali oxide in 120grit to help speed things along but is too aggresive for just direct paint but seems suitable for primer

Thanks in advance

 

[brightspark]

whats your set up. cabinet . blast pot . suction gun. cfm of comp blast jet size ?

 

[Engineer]

Most wheels are powder coated nowadays, so if you doing wheel refurb commercially you will need a chemical dip tank, as it will take an awful long time to remove powder coat with blast media.

 

[Rich200sx]

I have a cabinet using a pressurised blaster with only a 3mm nozzle at moment running from a 23cfm 200ltr compressor and with a 14cfm 200ltr compressor linked if required.

Most wheels that we do are painted with very few being powder coated, our customer base is mostly new to 3 year old cars so its mostly O.E wheels very rarely are these powder coated.

I am looking into stripping tanks and a full power coat set up which hope to be in place around 6-8 months but this is mostly for very badly corroded alloys that need a full strip and coat.

Its really the etching side of blasting on painted wheels that can increase my turnaround as by hand can be a very time consuming process.

 

[brightspark]

j blast superfine would be ok if there getting painted .its expendable abrasive but can only be used twice and breaks down to powder .there is a finer grade to use which works well on ally

 

[Engineer]

Your set up is going to be fine for a couple of sets of wheels a day, but to make any money out of wheel refurb you need to look at more professional blasting equipment, a powder line, chemical dip tank, tyre removing equipment, wheel balancer, and a simple way of removing kerb damage. Its also a good idea to forget about messing around with wet spray work, which requires a level of prep which means its difficult/impossible to make much money.

There is very good money to be made if you can provide top class wheel refurb work, but this entails all wheels being fully stripped, carefully examined for damage, repaired if required, then powder coated to a high standard. There are plenty of people in vans scratching around with wet spaying, and its best to avoid this end of the market if at all possible.

 

[the snooper]

he is already up and running and doing wheels he wants to become more efficient

 

[Engineer]

Thats the reason why I outlined what professional wheel refurb people use.

 

[gavuk]

We used a company called Vixen ,contact them they will advise according to your needs,they brought in a demo machine on a trailer ,we gave up dry blasting and went for aqua blasting ,much nicer ,less dust ,degreases at same time ........i see you can get an attachment for powerwashers now,not sure if they work well though?

 

[brightspark]

We used a company called Vixen ,contact them they will advise according to your needs,they brought in a demo machine on a trailer ,we gave up dry blasting and went for aqua blasting ,much nicer ,less dust ,degreases at same time ........i see you can get an attachment for powerwashers now,not sure if they work well though?

yes there ok but messy. loadsa water and sand all over. mind u the kiln dried sand is cheap

 

[gavuk]

yes there ok but messy. loadsa water and sand all over. mind u the kiln dried sand is cheap

I'm assuming you mean the power washers are messy?.....no risk of silicosis with it in water?.....you also remove the need for a larger compressor

 

[Rich200sx]

Engineer thanks for your input mate i understand if you think thats the way forward and i totally agree if i had the market for 6-8 sets a day i would look at spending £60-70 on a full factory output refubing wheels.

I own a tyre business that has all the tyre sprip down gear thats required, my main business is bodyshop and alloys is something that i cover around 7- 10 sets a week and just want to increase producivity?

You cant assume that my company is not a professional outfit just because i asked a question about something i know little about. 4 years i have had the wheel side of the business so im far from being inexperianced.

As far as wet spray wheels if you do them right they are as durable as any other refurbed wheel, i personally wet spray wheels because i can get 100% colour match on doing 1 wheel so they match if thats what customer requires, cant do that with pwder coat.

My skill is i can repair and match any make, model wheel to O.E spec that were powder coat falls short in my opinion

 

[brightspark]

I'm assuming you mean the power washers are messy?.....no risk of silicosis with it in water?.....you also remove the need for a larger compressor

it serves 2 purposes clean the parts then use the sand for the paving blocks

 

[Rich200sx]

Thanks guys for your input ill look into J blast fine, i dont think i could justify changing to aqua blasting.

Is the water mixed with grit for the aqua blast to work instead of air?

 

[brightspark]

i blasted car wheels motorcycle parts for a number of years as a part time buisness using grit sand and beadblasting .all so had a large tank of phenol for dipping parts in 1st not that u can buy the stuff over the counter as its real bad sh .,././t a good coat of 2k is as good as powder coating and cheaper

 

[gavuk]

its pumped as a slurry ,kept in suspension by air and the slurry pump,was very nice to use with no dust,...vixen were helpful ,we were using glass bead to finish alluminium plate ,not wheels though

 

[Engineer]

If wheel repair was your main business, it makes a lot of sense to get the best possible equipment for the job. But if not, the cost of the proper gear simply isnt justified. A fair number of current OE wheels are powder primed, and then wet sprayed by robots, which means that properly preparing them isnt that easy a process, without a dip tank.

 

[rtbcomp]

......... A fair number of current OE wheels are powder primed.........

That's interesting. I had some Chinese wheels in to blast, the top coat flew off but the primer took ages and ages, in fact the alloy came away more easily than the primer.

The customer got fed up after a day, broke into my workshop to recover them and helped themselves to another customer's set of wheels!

 

[Engineer]

It is more common for wheels produced in the far east, and OE on far eastern cars to be wet sprayed over epoxy primer. Really the only easy way to deal with these is chemical dip tank, then blast clean, time in the oven to remove chemical residues then powder coat.

 

[sean-1]

I blast a lot of alloy wheels and I would say to use a 400 grit stainless split shot. It lasts forever when being used on ally. Its quite expensive but you shouldnt need to much for a small hand cabinet.
I agree with you about the wet paint on them. Most coloured wheels I refurb are wet paint but I use an electrostatic spray system to eliminate waste and get round those pesky spokes.
Generally I only powder coat wheels silver and black.