Wheel Refinishing
Wheel & Rim Powder Coat Refinishing
STTC has a custom built powder coat system to refinish your wheels in a wide variety of colors. In addition to making your wheels look like new, our technicians inspect each wheel for signs of wear and tear which can lead to an unsafe vehicle condition.
Wheel Refinishing - The Process
Preparation
The first step is to shot blast each wheel to remove all dirt, grime, grease and most importantly all of the old paint. With the wheel "cleaned" to bare metal any defects or damage such as excessive rust damage, cracks, unusual bead seat wear and bolt hole distortion can be detected.
Iron Phosphate Bath
Many states are now using "Liquid calcium" as an anti-ice agent on the roadways. Unfortunately, calcium has a corrosive affect on metallic parts such as wheels. To minimize the damage to your wheels, STTC dips each wheel in an iron phosphate bath which helps to protect the wheel from this corrosive chemical.
Powder Paint Application
The powdered paint is electrostatically charged and sprayed onto the grounded wheel. STTC's automatic sprayers insure that the correct amount of powder (3 mm) is applied to the entire surface of each wheel. You can choose the color that best enhances your fleet's apperance.
"The Color options that are available to you"
Paint Curing
The electrostatically charged paint is now cured onto your wheel in our custom built gas fired oven for 30 minutes at 450 degrees Fahrenheit. The automated monorail insures that the paint is cured for the correct length of time.
Final Inspection
Each wheel gets a final inspection and is labeled so you can be assured of the highest quality powder coat in the commercial tire industry.
Wheel Refinishing - The Advantages
STTC's Advantages
- No commercial tire dealer in our region has added these extra steps to make the highest quality product for you, our customer.
- Automatic paint sprayers insure the correct paint thickness (3 mm) on every part of every wheel. Too much paint on the surface is dangerous and too little reduces the value of the powder coat.
- The Iron phosphate bath protects your wheel from premature corrosion.
- Our custom built gas fired curing oven ensures that the powder coating is cured correctly. If the powder coating is not heated to 450 degrees Fahrenheit for the correct length of time (30 minutes), then the powder coating will not have a complete cure.
- Our final inspection label validates our workmanship.
Powder Coat vs Liquid Paint
Powder coatings possess significant durability and resistance to abrasion, corrossion, scratching, and chemicals when compared to liquid or solvent based paint. Furthermore, powder coatings stay bright longer with less fading and the color selection is virtually unlimited. Finally, powder coating contains no solvent so the process emits no polluting volatile organic compounds (VOC's) into the atmosphere.