It's great to have friends.. they'll go way out of their way to "help" you with a new endeavour..
"Oh! you're gonna try powder coating?.. Here, I've got a set of rims you can practice on"
With a set of 4 aftermarket rims to practice on, it's time to see what water sandblasting is like.
OOPS!!
Well I'm not 100% surer it's an oops.. But this wasn't in the brochure. Not by a long shot. When the wet blasting jet hits a curves surface, it's like sticking your face in a combination hurricane / sand storm. Plus, the goggles go opaque, so you have to stop, see what you did, and then "use the force" on the next pass. Sand landed up in places that hadn't seen sand in over half a century. Cold wet sand. Very cold.
I wasn't overly thrilled with the result, powder coating left in crevices wouldn't much matter on a dark solid powder coat re finish. A clear colour, like the one I'm going to use, would, it seems to me, with a dark residue in the crevices, would either look really good, or really crappy. Nothing in between.
Oh well, good thing they were "donor rims"