Painting magnesium

[D project]

Anyone have any tips for the best way to prep magnesium for painting.
Also what type/brand of paint works best.

[Yamahaha]

A light bead blast etches it up nicely for the paint to adhere to. If your doing engine parts, the black bits I've done I've used VHT caliper paint: quite durable easy to apply.

[firko]

I know this has been done before on here but I can't find it. What's a good paint to do CZ hubs without them being over the top garishly gold. Besides having a pair of CZ hubs to be prepped for a project I have the set of American Racing Daisey wheels shown below on the water for my new Ford Ranchero. They originally had a magnesium style finish on the centres as can be seen on the two outside wheels in the photo below.
                                                                     

[tony27]

Is this too gold Firko? It's not as bright in the light of day


I ended up just using the gold paint sold at supercheap, not as orange as a lot of CZ hubs seem to be & I like the colour more than the hub I have that was powdercoated sun gold.
To get a finish closer to the original CZ colour involves a custom mixture of a couple of golds & a light green according the description of the photo of Lee Holth's hubs

[SON]

Great work on those wheels
Excellent

[FAT-TOY]

  Mark I enquired about the CZ hub colour with Lee Holth in the US and he sent me the directions below.  The paint is available from Supercheap but at around $20 a can you will be up for close to $100 for the mix of colours needed.  I have purchased them for my hubs but only because I should be able to do the 2 hubs, even after some dressed rehearsals, if you plan to paint your wheels you may need more.
                                                                                                                      Zane   
                                 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Well, it's not a set color code. The color on the CZ hubs is from the mold release agent and as such is not really a coating and it fades and gets grey in time. But they look cool when new and were really all a bit different. I use a 3 or 4 part process starting with bead blast then tape the steel parts and rivets followed by a quality bright silver undercoat. The gold goes on light so the silver keeps it bright. I stand way back and add some metallic green and metallic copper. Maily green. If you have a good front hub sometimes the inner brake drum still has the coating and these slight color changes can be seen. Remove any masking tape and finish with a good satin clear, U.V. proof if possible. Easily touched up if needed on a race bike; permanent on  show bike. The "dip" coating process (dye chromate) turns dark from what I've seen and I don't care for the plastic look of powder coat plus it's hard to repair or touch up ANYTHING coated, and it DOES chip off hubs. Plus most guys coat the steel parts and rivets adding to the wrong look. Nice thing with paint is if it doesn't look quite right you can easily remove it and do it over, no problem. Holds up just like original on a racer, but easy to touch up if desired. Send some pics......Lee[/color]

[tony27]

That's a lot more involved than I thought Zane, when I first saw the photos of the wheels & description of the colours involved I assumed it was a custom mixed paint rather than done by layering. Definitely not something I would be capable of doing at home

[firko]

I was sure I'd replied to this post but for some reason it's disappeared???
Here goes again. Tony I'm assuming the two hubs in the photos you posted are different colours and not just different lighting. I prefer the lighter colour as seen on the completed wheels, it's much closer to what I'm looking for. I'm going to try Lee's method as explained below on a test piece to see what result I get. I may just vapour blast the car wheels to go with the grey look of the two middle wheels but I'm jumping the gun a little as they haven't arrived from the US yet. I've seen a CZ hub done in a Metallic beige colour which is close to what I have in mind, it's supposedly a Holts spray can Mitsubishi colour but it's been discontinued and is now hard to obtain. Thanks for the contributions fella's. Any more ideas?

[tony27]

Firko, the photos are of 2 different wheels, the top 1 is the front hub I'm having spoked at the moment, the shot of the assembled wheels came off the oldscool cz forum in photos of different finishes & was described as being the closest to the original colour. There was a couple of shots of chemically dipped hubs & they are really pale & still nothing like the left over coating in my hubs which leads me to believe that the formulation of the chemicals isn't right or possibly the fact that the hubs aren't new when redone has a different effect to freshly cast hubs
Personally I prefer the lighter colour as well but I had to go with what I could get easily & was capable of doing myself, as I said in the above reply I hadn't expected the colour to be the result of layered paint which is definitely out of my comfort zone