Painting Hubs

[Phil Fink]

I have been tinkering with some old hubs of various makes and ages, overhaul and painting (not contracted metal-plating or powder-coating), and was wondering about using the very-high temperature (VHT) spray paints.

So Krylon has Engine paints (550-degrees) and Caliper paints (900-degrees), some others (1300-degrees), and Rust-Oleum might have their products too, but how hot do the coaster brake hub shells actually get; is high-temperature paint even necessary?
I have seen the down-hill videos with coaster brakes smoking from the hot oil or grease.

And besides price by the can, or color selections, are there any other trade-offs or disadvantages to the high-temperature spray paint cans, versus the usual rust-inhibiting spay paint in cans?

Just thinking basic-black or aluminum-silver hubs (for now).

 

[AndyA]

Uncle Phil:
Interesting question. Unless your riding is pretty extreme, I doubt that you would get smoke out of your hubs. But it would look way cool if you did. The only downside of high-temp paints is that they tend to be more brittle than regular paints. So you need to decide between the risk of paint failure due to temperature and failure due to chipping. I guess temperature failure would occur primarily along the middle part of a hub whereas chipping would happen around the spoke holes. If you painted a chrome-plated hub with silver, any paint failure would probably be hard to notice. Have fun.