Simple solutions:
You wouldn't trust a 30-year-old motor, so why wheels?
1/ Nick’s not looking very cheerful here, which is unusual but the state of these fluoro pink manky Marvics is probably affecting his normally perky demeanour. These wheels are ridiculously light, especially the front one. The blot-on sprocket carrier for the back wheel (alloy) weighs as much as the front wheel. 2&3/ See what I mean by minging? Oxidization, scrapes and dings don’t bode well. Neither does the disc mounting point’s painted mating surface. It’s amazing how much you don’t know when you’re only 24. 4/ The first step is to chemically strip all the paint off in a big bath of nasty acid. It’s less aggressive than blasting the paint off which can sometimes result in removing as much metal as paint. Not ideal when there’s not much metal to start with. Speaking of metal, a few of the bigger dings in the rim were skilfully magnesium welded by a friend of Nick’s and filed back to achieve a smooth edge. After all this excitement (would you fancy welding magnesium?) the wheels are washed and dried. 5/ A gentle turn in the glass bead blasting cabinet preps the surface to allow future applications to key. The finish here is a smooth satin – not shiny, not rough. Glass beads tend to peen the surface as well which also improves surface strength.
6&7/ Next the wheels get dipped in a water-soluble dye penetrant. Then they’re popped into a pitch-black room and examined for cracks with a magnifying glass and a beady eye under an ultra violet light. Proving to be crack-free, they’re then washed off and dried out. Acid House music at this point is optional. Ecstasy is provided by a lack of crack(s). 8/ This is how the wheels look after being dipped in a bath of dichromate. Magnesium dichromate (CR2MGO7) prevents the air oxidizing the surface of the magnesium should the final surface coating get damaged by an errant tyre lever or dropped caliper. It also prevents corrosion on the uncoated faces, like behind the discs. The corrosion products of magnesium are highly alkaline thus acting as a sort of paint stripper from within. The wheels are washed again and hung inside a low temp oven for 24 hours to de-gas. Then the disc mating surfaces are masked up and they’re ready for powder coating. 9/ Ta-da! Resplendent in their HRC Gold, gloss lacquered powder coating the Marvics are back to their factory-fresh condition. 10&11/ Finding front discs was a bit of a nightmare. A bloke who used to work for Brembo UK lost my original pair (prat) and Brembo no longer stocks this 300mm floating disc with a pretty severe 24mm offset. After much global ebay searching a very helpful man called Jon Wright at EBC brakes in Northampton discovered that an RGS1000 Laverda ran the same dimensions and they had a pair in stock. These EBC discs aren’t identical but very close and better than no discs at all when faced with Mallory’s hairpin, flat-out in fifth, I think you’ll agree.