Projects How to give your freshly powder coated wire wheels a weathered look.

Today I worked out how to age my freshly powder coated wheels.
Here's how!
Carefully wrap them in plastic coated foam to protect them and carefully store them away.
Then completely clean your shop.
Next turn your attention to welding up your '32 frame rails.
When you notice your back getting really hot turn around and observe your carefully wrapped wire wheels blazing away under the bench.
Grab the fire extinguisher and proceed to douse the flames. Drop your welding helmet in the fire in the process if you want that to look aged too, as I obviously did.
Spend the next hour re-cleaning the shop and vacuuming up all the white powder.
Clean all the melted rubber off the wheels and away you go.
Aged looking wire wheels the easy way.



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bummer.
prep and powder coating........take two.

 

I hate when that happens!

 

Sorry man, had to giggle when I read that.

 

Always wrap your stuff in asbestos!

 

could have been worse. what started it?

 

well at least you didn't Age the whole garage. Congrats on catching it before that happened.

 

A spark from welding even though I was at least eight feet away.

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Glad you weren't hurt. Bummer.

 

Good that you had a working extinguisher big enough to handle that, and put it out. Could have been way worse.

 

Damn, I'm going to have to be more careful when I weld, my shop is not the neatest!

 

Holy cow. As stated above at least the garage is still standing.

 

Burning foam is hard on your lungs. Buy yourself a lottery ticket.

 

And a Tig welder

 

Oh man another fake patina thread. Gimme a break!
Just kidding haha sorry bought your wheels that sucks. That's a real public service announcement for having a fire extinguisher on hand though. Fire happens so damn fast.

 

Accidents happen,even when we are carefully & assume we have all bases covered,it sucks that a wayward spark screwed up the freshly powder coated wheels but thankfully you had a fire extinguisher close by.

Your misfortune is a reminder to the rest of us to check our fire extinguishers and make sure they are in working order and up to date.

BTW,I just walked out in the shop and one of my two fire extinguishers has expired over 2 years ago,I put it in the truck and taking it to Fire & Safety today! HRP

 

Ours are checked by a fire official once a year. We have them at every work area. You need to get to them fast. It was extinguished 10 seconds after I noticed it.

I also never leave the shop until 30 minutes after finishing welding. These things can take awhile to develop. About 10 years ago I was parting out a 46 Ford in the same shop and the damn thing caught fire 15 minutes after I'd plasma cut some parts off it. Again a big mess after hitting it with a powder extinguisher.

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Going to buy an extinguisher for my garage TODAY!!! I NEVER weld in my wood frame single car garage. I'm too scared to for just that reason. I always roll the welder and whatever I'm welding outside. So...no welding on windy days or if raining.

Andy

 

Sorry about your wheels and glad it didn't end up worse.
But, that was a well written "how to" and i enjoyed the laugh this morning.
Thank you


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I usually (and far too often) give myself the weathered look with the same technique.

Grinding is another easy way to light your shop (and yourself) on fire. Grinding on my work bench, I shot some sparks into an open box of steel wool a few months ago, it was a freak shot that I probably couldn't have made if I tried, but if I hadn't noticed right away things might've gotten exciting. Have a look on youtube for steel wool fire, pretty crazy stuff.

 

a buddy of mine gave the weathered look to his 55 Chevy when he caught the car cover on fire. luckily it only destroyed the paint and didn't take down the whole house.

 

I had a "fire in the shop" experience a few years ago. I had just purchased a Miller Synchrowave and was practicing welding aluminum. I have a steel 55 gallon drum open top trash can, and I laid a piece of 1/8 inch plate over the top for a makeshift table to weld on. Of course it didn't cover the entire top of the drum, so......

After a few minutes I thought the Shovelhead primary cover I was welding on was really putting off a lot of heat, so I pulled the mask off and realized I had a fire in the trash can. Burned my hand a bit pulling the fiery SOB outside, no extinguisher in the shop then. There are two of them now, one by the welders and one by the grinder. We can be lucky, can't we?

 

Great attitude about how things sometimes go in the shop. Thanks for a quick life lesson!

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dizzamn!

 

At least you're making lemonade out of lemons, good for you. Be glad it wasn't a set of Halibrands, only option might have been to run like hell!

 

Now you can sell them for big bucks to the guy with a fiberglass car with simulated rust.

 

Just last night was watching a show on HGTV.
Couple decided to install a custom metal railing on a landing to the second floor.
Next they showed a welder mig welding and fabbing it piece by piece right in the middle of the landing with sparks flying all over the house.
I bet the next segment was on Chicago Fire.

 

At least you have kept a good sense of humor about it. Sometimes we laugh to keep from crying.

 

Those mig sparks might look scary but they're so tiny they lose their heat almost immediately. Damn things go down my shirt and socks so often. Looks like I have moths in my closet. But the pain is over in a second. I guess that rubber foam stuff must have been very flammable. Normally I can weld right next to paper towels and they rarely catch fire. When they do you can just pat out the fire. That foam goes up like gasoline. It's the stuff some folks put in their cars as sound deadener. The slightly rubberized black foam sheet. Don't use it in cars. And check there's none of it in your shop or home.

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By the title I thought this was going to be another fake patina thread. Bummer about your wheels, thanks for posting.