Heat Treatment of Spun Wheels

[Max Power]

Hi,

I am having some rim outers spun out of 2.5mm thick 5005 series Al. Just wondering what heat treatments would be suitable if any.

[Max Power]

Hi,

I am having some rim outers spun out of 2.5mm thick 5005 series Al. Just wondering what heat treatments would be suitable if any.

[Jarrod]

i don't think 5005 can be treated to any reasonable level. in sheet it is only available as H32 and H34, neither of which are really good enough. we had some similar rims from a previous team, and had some very bad experiences. A tyre fitter crushed one when useing a pneumatic bead breaker, then we distorted a few fitting tyres by hand. After one particularly nasty incident whilst inflating a tyre (the dunlop tyres we use are a little on the small side on bead diameter) we very quickly organised some 6061 in T0 condition to be spun, then solution heat treated and aged, to something around T6. We can get pretty fiesty on the tyre levers now, the only concern is gouging out the aluminium a bit. You can seriously feel the difference by hand, with two rims of identical thickness.