How did wheel horse paint them?

[Anthony Wendover 124]

Between 1984-2007 how did wheel horse paint our babies? What kind of primer was used? Did they do 3 coats of paint or just one? Did they use clear coat on anything? If so did it go over the black part on the front of the hood? Did they clear the frame and axles? Is that just one quick layer of paint? How did they do the rims? look forward to seeing if anyone knows how they did it back in the day,

[W9JAB 156]

:omg:

It would be great if we had some old Wheel Horse

employees on this site, I would like to talk with some

of the one's who came up with the designs myself.

[MikesRJ 552]

It is my understanding that Wheel Horse painted in the following manner:

- Machines were generally not primed.

- The partially assembled machine was sprayed en-mass with a single coat of paint was used and was sprayed on with HVLP equipment.

- The tractors were conveyed to a roof-top oven for curing at a little over 260 degrees for about 20 minutes or so.

- Clear-coat was generally not used on any machines as most of the out sheet metal parts came from the supplier all ready for installation. They were generally painted in the same manner as the machines but buffed out to a shine.

- The rims came from the supplier already painted. I would think un-primed as well as I have seen no primer on the rims during restorations.

[sorekiwi 761]

Badly? :omg:

[rmaynard 15,715]

It is my understanding that Wheel Horse painted in the following manner:

- Machines were generally not primed.

- The partially assembled machine was sprayed en-mass with a single coat of paint was used and was sprayed on with HVLP equipment.

- The tractors were conveyed to a roof-top oven for curing at a little over 260 degrees for about 20 minutes or so.

- Clear-coat was generally not used on any machines as most of the out sheet metal parts came from the supplier all ready for installation. They were generally painted in the same manner as the machines but buffed out to a shine.

- The rims came from the supplier already painted. I would think un-primed as well as I have seen no primer on the rims during restorations.

Mike,

You are right about how it was probably done. Having been an antique furniture re-finisher, I have been asked to take off paint down to the original color. It is not easy, but I have done it.

Now, when I started to restore my 1977 B-100, I decided to take a look at how it was painted. I took the fender pan and started to remove the first layer of paint. Surprise!!

That's all there was. One coat, about 3-4 mils thick, and no primer.

Now as I took various parts off, such as the hood stand and belt guard, each of those had been painted separately, as there were not areas without paint where they had been assembled to the frame and to each other.

Bob

[Anthony Wendover 124]

thanks for the insight. I wish we had old wheel horse employees here... So would you recommend doing a coat of primer and a coat of paint then clear? is clear a big deal? what is the advantage of it?

[markslawnmowerworld 4]

some where i have a picture of the painting line inside the wheel horse factory

i remember the picture being black and white though...when i find it i will post it. :omg:

[TT-(Moderator) 1,145]

Does it look like this?:

That's probably a little different than how the later models were painted.

[markslawnmowerworld 4]

the one i have was taken from up above...and your looking down,

i like these old pics...pretty neat! :omg:

[dandan111 31]

Reminds me of the old foundry I worked in,

only we had alot more parts hanging on our

monorail. I had bad dreams about that place!

[wh500special 2,240]

Badly?

I was all set to reply "Barely", but you beat me to it!

Steve

[Kelly 1,030]

Poorly, badly, barely, pretty much covers it. up till the early 80's they just faded bad then rusted with very thin paint, then they applied thicker paint that blistered and held water under it rusting the metal out, then peeling of in sheets. they could have done a much better job on the paint work, just look at the engines on the same tractors, they were painted by kohler (on kohler powered tractrors) and the paint held up pretty good on most, better paint? maybe, primer yes I'm sure that helped.