• Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Sweden - About 1988 and older

  • Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

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    Thanks for your patience and support!

Anodizing fork tubes and rims vs powdercoat

L

Larsa

Husqvarna
A Class
I have a dilemma on whether to go for anodizing of the fork tubes and rims or powdercoat.

I had determined to do powdercoat in gold, but then I met up with some guys that talked me into do anodizing. I have blasted all parts already since I was thinking powedercoat so now I think maybe there will be a difference in color / spots etc when etched and anodized.

I am seeking to build an original bike, but without beeing too picky.

What seems to be the popular option around for the fork tubes?, I realize from reading on the forum that anodizing for the rims seems to be the most used.

(And of course one of the rims had a crack in it, so need a new one, but I hope that can be fixed today. Quite interesting if you look at the picture, the original joint on the rim is missing the weld on 50% of the length, with a perfect cut, so the weld did not melt through when manufactured I guess)
 

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One of the things people need to understand when they see a straight 'crack' above a rim dent that rims by construction are rolled, seam welded, then turned for profile. The seam welds are usually about 50% central across the width so there is no weld fusion where the dents occur. So what appears to be a crack is usually just unwelded seam separation and not actually a structural crack
 
Jimspac, I understand the manufacturing procedure of a rim, but was not aware of the fact that it is usual to have only a partial weld seam on it. Interesting indeed, that would explain my rim look, although I think my 'crack' has propagated to an unacceptable length.
thanks,
Larss
 
It is possible your rim was welded with as little as 30% because the separation looks clean in the picture with no tearing of weld or parent material. I have seen rims like that straightened to close the gap and heliarc welded then blended. I have seen repairs done so well they are undetectable under anodizing.
 
You can anodize a polished surface but not a cast surface. In other words Your Forks will look nothing like the Rims. The Forks will be dead dull. Of coarse You could machine the surface of the Forks and polish them and they would look great but I assume You want an OEM look. Gold is one of the worse Colors to Anodize, its hard to get two parts to come out the same color. This is one of the reasons Sun is the only one left offering them new. I himed and hawed on this same subject for a wile and Tig Welded up my broken Seams like Yours and Started to Polish the Rims to prep them for Anodizing. I took them to a local Shop and they basicly told me they would look like Crap when done cause the dissimilar Metal of the Welds would show right up. The Polishing would have to be equal all the way around on both Rims. Every Dent and Chip would show up worse than ever. This is what talked me into a new set of Sun Rims and Buchman Spokes. ( not the bike in the pic )
 
I gave all parts to the powdercoat shop today. Will have both primer and clear coat layers done on everything, so I decided not to go for anodizing on the aluminium. Hopefully the parts will turn out OK.
Took all other metal into the electroplating/chroming shop aswell, scary with all the bathtubs..glad not to be working with that everyday honestly.
Thanks for your suggestions
Lars
 
Got the parts back today. Great shop this time, used a new one a little longer away, but great people to talk to and do buissness with. I tend to support that instead of price and lead time.

The colors might not be 100% accurate, gold one much less shiny and silver more shiny, but it is the colors I chose and the way I wanted it. Plated parts need polishing of course.

For anyone interested I inserted some pics of some of the parts.
 

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