What Is powder coating? New wheels for the S2000!

How To Powder Coat Your Car Wheels.

The powder is a blend of polymers, pigments, and other ingredients which are mixed in a hopper. The hopper has a fluidizing plate at the bottom which flows air up through the powder, keeping it in a liquid like state for application. Aaron is using his own self-made fluidizing hopper. 

Now looking at powder coating gun, on the front of it is a corona ring, which is attached to ground and this captures any overcharged powder particles so that they don’t cause any disruptions on the wheel. Not every powder coating gun has a corona ring. On the front of the gun you can see the x-pattern tip for spraying powder.

Once removed, you can see the electrode which charges the powder, and then a white plastic sleeve around it which protects the powder gun from getting any cured powder inside of it. This electrode tip operates up to 80,000 volts. This high voltage ionizes the air surrounding it, meaning the surrounding air particles don’t have a matching number of protons and electrons; in other words it creates a cloud or field around it with a charge.

There are different guns available, some with the ability to provide negatively charged particles, and some provide positively charged particles. With Aaron’s powder gun, the powder is then forced through the ionized field using air pressure, and the powder picks up a charge as it passes though. The wheel, in this scenario, is grounded. As the charged powder particles move through the air, they head to the nearest ground, which in this case is the wheel, which the powder then sticks to.