Im thinking about gettin my wheels on my f4i anodized. Anybody know anything about anodizing or has their wheels done up. Is it worth it or should i just get it powdercoated

 

powder coating would be cheaper and you have a bigger selection of colors.

to get the most out of an anodizing job you'd want the wheels polished first. anodizing over the rough casted parts of the wheel would look like ***.

 

Duplicolor has and anodized spray paint. I've seen it used on some rims for a couple 50's and it came out pretty good. Depends on what you want. Was just throwin a cheap alternative out there. Don't know if you want the bike as a show bike or what, but check out duplicolor if you want.

 

Your OEM rims are made of forged aluminum, and you cannot anodize forged aluminum properly. They will anodize but there is no guarntee what colour they will turn out.. Forged aluminum is not pure enough to anodize properly (there are too many other metals mixed in) and only true billet parts will anodize properly for example 6061 0r 7075....

Here is a perfect example, I had a bunch of parts anodized...Mostly 6061 and some 7075 sprockets. I also had a forged part and I just wanted to see what would happen to it when anodized....So that part was done at the same time as the rest and you see for yourself what happens when you try to anodize forged parts...

These are the misc 6061 and 7075 parts I had done in red and black ( I polish the parts first, to give them that deep candy gloss look)...



And this is the one forged part that was done at the same time, as you can see it was supposed to come out red but it came out pinkish/grey...And it actually looks worse in person!


If you want the anodized look on forged rims you need to look into powdercoating them with a translucent colour...Either polish them first or lay a chrome or metalic silver base powder coat, then clear over with the transparent powder colour of your choice....

 

so if i polish them up real nice and get rid of all the rough surface and then get them anodized it would look alright? or do i need to polish them and then spray them with something? which route do you think i should take so they look the best.

 

even if you polish it up nice anodizing them isnt going to give you the color its still the same metal, just shinny. translucent powder coating is the way to go.

 

candy powder coat!

 

powder coating can take more abuse

 

No it cant! Powder coating is a coating, so your adding material to the surface, now powder is very strong but its still a coating on top of the metals surface. Anodize however isnt just a layer or coating onto of the material, it is actually etched into the aluminums surface. Adds no thickness to the material and therefore it totally chip/peel proof, the only thing you can really do is scratch it...

 

Doenst matter what you do to the surface, its still made of forged aluminum and is not pure enough...It will anodize but you wont get the colour you want, ask for red and youll get pink, blue will be purpleish, black will turn out gray, etc etc....Anodize isnt just a coating, so its not just the surface finish that matters, the whole part must be billet aluminum or it wont work right...

 

+1

durability of an anodized part is much better than powdercoating, but powdercoating is better than paint usually.

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if its a stuntbike, i would roll with the above idea, if you know what your doing you can make that **** turn out nice. take a look at one of havoks threads, his wheels came out clean.

 

it can wear off i had a paintball gun anodized and where i gripped the gun it wore away . i have my race quad powder coated it it has been riden alot and it dosen't show hardly any chips at all ad it was done 4 years ago

 

There are differnt kinds of anodize, the fancy colours are not as durable as a "hard" anodize...

Still an anodize IMO is more resistant then powder coat, Ive done alot of both so thats just my experience with both of them....And there are certain things I dont think should ever be powdercoated, billet parts deserve anodize!

Pcoat adds a thinkness to parts, so any bearing bores, threads, mating surfaces, etc etc need to be taped off or plugged...Anodize does not so parts can be competely coverd in it and still fit, bolts will still tread, etc....2 totally differnt processes, and there a time to use both...Some things Id rather ano and others get Pcoat

 

i have not had a whole lot of experience with ano . but i know powder holds up very well i helped a friend build a cutom bike and we had a bunch of stuff powder coated including the rear sprocket and it has not even chipped yet and it has about 3000 miles on it but even the guy that coated it for us wasn't sure if it would hold up . so like you said everything has its place