I called a wheel refinisher in Houston to price the refinishing some old Turbo wheels. He said that you can not sandblast aluminum wheels. There is a local guy here who will sanddblast them for $20.00 each. Then I would by some wheel paint. What is the deal?
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1990 240- 230K- VX cam, springs, bilstiens, spt exh, euro lamps-turbo whls

Do not sandblast aluminum, it's too rough and can strip to much material off the wheel leaving bad pitting.

People do tend to confuse the 2 but there is sand blasting and bead blasting, both have diffrent purposes
Sand blasting is a very rough process, designed for harder metals etc, the medium they use is very rough and can cut through metal if your not real carefull.
Bead blasting uses polly or plastic style glass beads, it's a very gentle process that is designed to remove all forms of surface coatings yet leave the base material untouched.

My father has had a beed blaster for 10-15 years now, one of the things he used it for is stripping old paint and grime off old motorcycle wheel hubs, it strips every last scrap of everything, yet leaves the aloy hubs perfect, with no base material removed, and no bad marks, the end finish is easy to paint or polish.

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Veronica, my 85 760Ti

"sand blasting" aluminum is a dumb idea because alloy is soft. A better approach is to use glass beads, which remove the finish without the abrasive qualities of sand.

"Wheel Refinishers" are fine if you have a Porsche. They'll gladly charge you $150 per rim and do a smashing job.

For us poor Volvo folks, sandblasting is just fine. I have a local shop that sandblasts and powdercoats aluminum rims for me all the time. I pay $45 per rim. The powdercoat is a super-durable finish; I've had one set of Coronas for 2 years, including winters. With a wash, they look grand.

For truly super wheels, maybe find a shop that does glass bead blasting. A little less abrasive than sand.

I just found a guy here in Santa Barbara who will bead-blast and powder coat my Virgos for $50.00 a wheel. Seemed like a fair price to me.
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don hodgdon '89 744ti, '81 242t, '71 D-35

Can you tell me who it is in Santa Barbara? Thanks.

Santa Barbara Industrial Finishing on S. Kellogg in Goleta.

The $50.00 per wheel was quoted over the phone.

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don hodgdon '89 744ti, '81 242t, '71 D-35

45 per rim is pretty good to get a wheel preped and powder coated. Where are they located?

thanks

-Bruce

Michigan. It's a small shop. They have the Post Office contract for mailboxes!

And for us really really cheap, poor guys who pay $15 per rim ($45 sandblasting is out of the question), wet/dry sand paper works very well. I have refinished probably 50 Virgos, lotta elbow grease, but they sure look fine. If the paint is so badly checked that you have to remove all, aircraft remover (methylene chloride) will do it, but use extreme caution and maximum ventilation, working upwind with heavy hand and eye protection.

Dr. Bob:

You misread my post. $45 per wheel includes sandblasting AND powdercoating.

OK, that is better but still livin mighty high off the old hog, by my standards. Low cost wheels + low cost (high effort) refinish = sellers profit for college bills.