Two Tone Powder Coat

[engineerscott]

I hoping you guys could give me some guidance on a project I'm about to start. I need to powder coat some auto wheels. It would be pretty straight forward except I need to powder coat two colors. The center of these wheels needs to be black. The outer rim needs to be a light blue. There is a seam that divides the black from the blue, but the two colors need to run right up to each other and there needs to be sharp line seperating the colors (i.e. the colors do not blend into one another).

Off the top of my head it seems like there are two possible ways to approach this.

First approach - I could power coat the entire wheel in one of the colors (say black) and then tape and mask and come back over the top with the other color. I've never put coats on top of each other and I would be concerned about outgassing from the first coat affecting the finish of the second. Also would be concerned about bleed through.

The second approach would be to mask off the outer part of the rim, hit the center with black powder then oven cure. Once cured I would then mask out the black center then powder the outer rim with light blue and then throw it back in the oven and cure. The only part that concerns me here is that the black center part will be baked twice. Don't know if the second bake in the oven will damage the 1st powder coat.

Would appreciate any advice from someone who has done anything similar.

Thanks,

Scott

[wamontgomery]

Personally I think either way would work fine. I think the second way would work better, but you need to tape things off twice. I'd wait for some more input though.

[FSTFBDY]

Tape it off and 1/2 cure the 1st coat. Let it cool down enough you can use some tape and aluminum foil to cover the black. SHoot on the blue and remove your tape and foil. finish the cure.

[engineerscott]

Thanks for the answers. I think what FSTFBDY suggests sounds the most reasonable. I was wondering FSTFBDY if you've ever used this method personally and if so how hard it is to tape onto the partially cured powder without messing it up?

[FSTFBDY]

Yes that's how I do it. I'm a commercial coater. Been doing it since 2000 and Never had a problem.

[myillwillinc]

i did a couple of parts that way also. they came out just fine.