Why doesn't any team paint their suspension parts?

[Conceptual]

Is there some rule against painting the suspension? Or do they do they not simply to define what is bodywork and what is suspension?

Any thoughts are appreciated!

[DaveKillens]

Paint hides flaws, and if a suspension component was to begin to fail, exhibiting cracks, they most likely would not be detected until too late. I remember a long time ago in a racing series I was involved in, it was illegal to chrome plate the frame because of this issue.

[wesley123]

I guess you underestimate the cars paint weight, it is a quick guess but i guess ferraris paint allready weights around 20 kg, if you would paint the arms too it will take another 2 kilo wich could also be used as ballast. Also the suspension arm would be slightly thicker and the surface will be less flat, so that will cause unwanted vortices/drag. It is all about how a car performs in f1, not how it looks.

[RacingManiac]

actually I thought there was an article a while back saying that Renault's paint job weighs ~ 6KG. Which is still quite a bit considering the nature of the series and the length people go to for weight saving. But still substantially less than 20kg....

My guess is the same as Dave's, that it might hide flaws on those more critically designed parts.

[wesley123]

actually I thought there was an article a while back saying that Renault's paint job weighs ~ 6KG. Which is still quite a bit considering the nature of the series and the length people go to for weight saving. But still substantially less than 20kg....

My guess is the same as Dave's, that it might hide flaws on those more critically designed parts.

you know how many coats it takes to make a f1 car shiny like they do when they race first? It will atleast take 6 layers, and probably 1 or 2 chrome layers to make it shiny, and after that a few layers of blank paint to protect the paint from small rocks so it wont scratch. This all will at least take 10 layers if i took the ferrari, this all will take 20 kg, i am sure aboutt hat. And if you take a car like the mclaren it will be even more.
2 basic coat
2 grey coats
2 black paintbrush coats
2 fluorising red coats
3 or more chrome layers
then still 3 protecting coats.
this all will take 14 layers of paint, this all will make the cars nicer so im sure it will take 25 kg of paint on the mclaren. After that, the car will be cleaned after every run so it looks better for the sponsors. You cant make the paint as nice as they are with only 2 kilos of paint, with that you will only make 1 layer of paint.

[chasefreak]

mclaren use a very special formula in their paint. that is what they said when they introduced the crome like paint on their cars...... and they are too smart to have a weight of 25kg on their cars just for paint...
there was an article abt the paint that mclaren use on their F1 cars i just cannto find it
soon as i get it i will put it up

[Ciro Pabón]

25 kilos? I suscribe to chasefreak point of view.

As usual, let's get some back-of-the-envelope numbers. Grade of difficulty 2, no calculator.

A typical car has around 6 mils-thickness paint (give or take, 0.15 millimeters), including E-coat, primer, base and clear coat.

Let's assume that the car has, I don't know, 5 square meters of surface (the bottom, the windows and many plastic parts are not painted, after all).

After you paint a car, you polish it. After polishing, you could end with a 0.1 mm thick layer (if you're a master of the sandblaster).

So, I estimate the total weight of a professionally polished regular-car paint, at 2 tons/m3, to be:

Weight = 5m2*0.0001m*2000kg/m3 = 1 kg.

Now we know why Kimi takes a dump before the race.

Mercedes with 125 microns (0.000125 m) paint. Germans are so conservative... (hi, WB!)


But wait! We're talking F1.

Thus, I think that the fact that you use 15 colours does not mean you're using 15 layers one on top of the other. Altough I'm not sure, because Wesley is normally pretty rational and well sourced in his posts, so... who knows how they do it?

To reach a conclusion, based on real knowledge, I can recomend you a link to a good site with lots of articles about F1 cars. It's a site with the best mods and members in the world (mx_tifosi, timbo and all of you) and, on the other hand, me:

"... By the end of the process, the monocoque shouldn't have gained any more than 500 grams extra. We check that carefully when it gets back to the factory, because weight is such a critical parameter in F1."

F1Technical article on F1 paint

Conclusion: F1 paint has to be around 0.05 mm (50 microns, or millionths of a meter) thick, give or take. More or less the thickness of a cigarrete wrapper.

About painting components that work like cantilevers, under flexure, I don't know. Maybe what will crack is the paint, specially such a thin one, but Dave has a good point.

[flynfrog]

actually I thought there was an article a while back saying that Renault's paint job weighs ~ 6KG. Which is still quite a bit considering the nature of the series and the length people go to for weight saving. But still substantially less than 20kg....

My guess is the same as Dave's, that it might hide flaws on those more critically designed parts.

you know how many coats it takes to make a f1 car shiny like they do when they race first? It will atleast take 6 layers, and probably 1 or 2 chrome layers to make it shiny, and after that a few layers of blank paint to protect the paint from small rocks so it wont scratch. This all will at least take 10 layers if i took the ferrari, this all will take 20 kg, i am sure aboutt hat. And if you take a car like the mclaren it will be even more.
2 basic coat
2 grey coats
2 black paintbrush coats
2 fluorising red coats
3 or more chrome layers
then still 3 protecting coats.
this all will take 14 layers of paint, this all will make the cars nicer so im sure it will take 25 kg of paint on the mclaren. After that, the car will be cleaned after every run so it looks better for the sponsors. You cant make the paint as nice as they are with only 2 kilos of paint, with that you will only make 1 layer of paint.

where are you getting this from.

more like 1-2 coats of filler primer that gets wet sanded

maybe a sealer

2-3 coats of red

2-3 coats of clear that gets wet saned and buffed

also every thing but the clear coat goes on super thin

the filler primer can go on thick but gets sanded down quite a bit



here is a similar paint to Macas http://www.kustomrides.com/chromepaint.htm

it goes on a powder

some setups can be recycle

[Michiba]

Could it just be 'inconvenient' to paint every single suspension linkage? Excuse my ignorance, but how many of those items would a team use every race? And do they change the linkages for the different setups or are the changes in setup adjustments independent of the linkages?

Besides, there's not potential advertising space there so I guess it doesn't deserve a paint job.

[scarbs]

Suspension elements aren't painted as they are crack tested after each race. The paint would interfere with the ultrasound and accoutsic testing, while stripping the paint would only slow this already laborious process down.

Teams often wrap the suspension arms in clear tape, this prevent stones chipping the surface and causing failures. If they wanted colour then the tape could coloured rather than paint the arms.

An F1 car has very little paint. The teams use the minimum of filler over the bare carbon\resin surface. Then there's a primer coat and then a colour coat, That's it! The paint never fulyl cures and remains soft. In between races the paint is scraped off by hand, the part weighed to ensure all the paint's been taken off and then repainted.

[Belatti]

I work in a BASF automotive and industrial coatings plant, I know a little bit about that, so, Kudos to Ciro´s intuition

Just when I was going to type something more about it, scarbs appeared

[Ciro Pabón]

Welcome to the society of mutual eulogies, Belatti.

[wesley123]

actually I thought there was an article a while back saying that Renault's paint job weighs ~ 6KG. Which is still quite a bit considering the nature of the series and the length people go to for weight saving. But still substantially less than 20kg....

My guess is the same as Dave's, that it might hide flaws on those more critically designed parts.

you know how many coats it takes to make a f1 car shiny like they do when they race first? It will atleast take 6 layers, and probably 1 or 2 chrome layers to make it shiny, and after that a few layers of blank paint to protect the paint from small rocks so it wont scratch. This all will at least take 10 layers if i took the ferrari, this all will take 20 kg, i am sure aboutt hat. And if you take a car like the mclaren it will be even more.
2 basic coat
2 grey coats
2 black paintbrush coats
2 fluorising red coats
3 or more chrome layers
then still 3 protecting coats.
this all will take 14 layers of paint, this all will make the cars nicer so im sure it will take 25 kg of paint on the mclaren. After that, the car will be cleaned after every run so it looks better for the sponsors. You cant make the paint as nice as they are with only 2 kilos of paint, with that you will only make 1 layer of paint.

where are you getting this from.

more like 1-2 coats of filler primer that gets wet sanded

maybe a sealer

2-3 coats of red

2-3 coats of clear that gets wet saned and buffed

also every thing but the clear coat goes on super thin

the filler primer can go on thick but gets sanded down quite a bit



here is a similar paint to Macas http://www.kustomrides.com/chromepaint.htm

it goes on a powder

some setups can be recycle

It is just a guess, in car programs i watch they use on hotrods at least 6-7 layers of paint, every colour that gets used is count as one layer. Basicly you can say the mclaren has 3 colours so that will be at least 3 layers.

First you will get a basic coat to make the paint that follows will be good to the body. Lets say it will be 2 layers. Then there will be a first coat, the grey one wich will be 2 layers, then there will be a black on for the stripes wich are apintbrushed, lets state this is 1 layer. After that there comes the red wich needs to be perfect because there comes a sponsor on it, so lets say 2 layers. Then there will be at least 2 chrome layers to make the car shiney. After that there comes a blank paint to protect the car from scratches, so that will be 3 layers. this all will be 12 layers, wich is pretty plausible. Maybe it will be even more if they paint the logo on it and dont use stickers.
Maybe you should ask mclaren about it, they wont give it precise but maybe they will give a roughly taken answer, like 5 kilo.

[RacingManiac]

that's hotrod, not exactly F1 cars now. Those are showcars, and they suppose to look nice.....

the renault quote:
http://www.f1network.net/main/s208/st131265.htm

BTW if you ever seen a close up shot of the McLaren's chrome paint upclose, it is real thin, much like someone's bad bodyshop repair thin. With ripple and unevenness on the surface. They only need to look good on TV camera, from more than 2-300 ft away. Not inches away....

[Conceptual]

Suspension elements aren't painted as they are crack tested after each race. The paint would interfere with the ultrasound and accoutsic testing, while stripping the paint would only slow this already laborious process down.

Teams often wrap the suspension arms in clear tape, this prevent stones chipping the surface and causing failures. If they wanted colour then the tape could coloured rather than paint the arms.

An F1 car has very little paint. The teams use the minimum of filler over the bare carbon\resin surface. Then there's a primer coat and then a colour coat, That's it! The paint never fulyl cures and remains soft. In between races the paint is scraped off by hand, the part weighed to ensure all the paint's been taken off and then repainted.

Thank you Scarbs. As always, very informative, and I appreciate your taking the time to answer.

I thank everyone else as well. It just struck me that all of the teams left them unpainted, and I thought there must be a regulation, or some would paint them.

Thanks for the info!