What Exactly is Powder Coating?
Powder coating is a process of dry powder that is used like a liquid paint to coat a surface. In the case of my Honda CBR600RR, I wanted to paint my wheels gold. However, more uniform application and increased durability would be obtainable with a powder coat over a paint.
Power coating is applied by electrostatically applying the powder coat and then curing with heat. The application takes place by electrostatically charging the powder particles and then spraying it via a spray gun onto a grounded part. After the product cures under heat, the powder coated surface exhibits a durable coating that surpasses that of conventional paint. Lastly, powder coating is more environmentally friendly because it does not have any carrier fluids (like conventional liquid paint) that evaporate away over time.
Getting My Honda CBR600RR’s Wheels Powder Coated
My 2003 Honda CBR600RR had the stock black fairings with a grey lower fairing sporting the Honda logo. I really liked this OEM color scheme as it was simple and clean. However, I caught a glimpse of the Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) race fairings in that blazing red, white, and blue color scheme and straight up fell in love. Combining these colors and further contrasting it with the gold wheels would be absolutely gnarly.
But first, I wanted to get the wheels powder coated since I was still doing research to find a good aftermarket fairing set. I did some searching online and found a local San Francisco motorcycle shop in the Mission District that was able to powder coat my wheels. The cost to powder coat the two wheels was about $300-$400 and took a few days.
The easy thing about it all was that I was able to drop off my bike and they were able to remove the wheels and dismount the tires, powder coat the rims, and reinstall it back for me. Since I didn’t have to deal with all of that, I simply had to pick up my bike with everything completed. When I walked up to see my bike, I was impressed at the end result.
The gold color on the wheels held up incredibly well over the following years without any sign of chips, cracks, or fade. I even did a track day right afterwards and was really happy with how my bike looked (minus the blue tape around the lights). After I had the wheels powder coated gold, I finally found an aftermarket HRC fairing set on Ebay that I ordered and proceeded to complete the whole HRC color scheme that I was aiming for.
