How To Finish Bead-Blasted Wheels

[jyl]

Well, I bought four cheap 7Jx15 cookie-cutters for my snow tire project. Grungy ones, with faded chipped black paint in the centers and flaking peeling clearcoat on the rims. I wasn't thrilled about them, even just for snow tires, but fortunately my wife said "you shouldn't put anything yucky on your car" which I interpreted as permission . . .

So I had the front faces of the wheels bead-blasted for $15/each - seems like a bargain, to avoid all that stripping and scraping. Now, I am trying to decide on the best way to finish the wheels.

"Best" means:
- I can get it done in roughly one full day (8 hours) of work, because that's all the time I'll have before I've got to get the snow tires mounted and go skiing
- cost less than $10/each, because this was supposed to be cheap
- durable enough to hold up to a few weeks a year of skiing use, the rest of the time they'll sit in the garage
- nice-enough looking, for secondary wheels

Here are some choices:

Choice 1 - polished rims, black painted centers. This would be my first choice. How much work is it to polish out a bead-blasted rim? Should I start with fine wet sandpaper then move to a buffing wheel on a drill? What kind of polishing compound to use? Do cookie cutters polish nicely (has anyone ever bothered?) Can I just use hardware store black enamel paint? Can I paint right on the very-slightly-rough bead-blasted surface, or should I sand and prime? Should I bake each wheel after painting, and what temp & time?

Choice 2 - silver painted rims, black painted centers. This would be a quick and lazy way to approximate Choice 1. Clever, or tacky?

Choice 3 - I'm open to suggestions.

[350HP930]

You may want to review the pics of how I turned some trashy cup wheels into my second set of wheels for racing purposes. They also nicely mount a set of 245/45-17 and 275/40-17 tires to boot.

http://www.tamparacing.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=11516

Everyone who has seen them would never guess that they were painted in my garage with a couple cans of krylon spray paint.

[jyl]

Those look nice! What prep, if any, did you do before the Krylon paint? Sand, prime, etc?

Also, is that a satin black?

[jyl]

Pics of a bead-blasted wheel



I know no-one likes cookies, but I think these could end up okay.

[350HP930]

Originally posted by jyl
Those look nice! What prep, if any, did you do before the Krylon paint? Sand, prime, etc?

Also, is that a satin black?

Just filing (since they were nicked up pretty bad from regularily falling on their faces), sanding and cleaning before the paint went on. Spray enamel sticks to cleaned and etched power coating and aluminum really well.

And yes, it is a satin black. Even when they are covered with brake dust you can't tell. Cleaning them is as simple as wiping off my hand painted red trim with a damp rag.

Total cost including a half worn set of BFG R1s, $650.

I can't even buy a new set of Kumhos for that much.

[n8marx]

jyl,

I am just finishing up polishing my fuchs which I bead-blasted. My plan of attack was to hand sand with 220 grit paper 'til smooth then start in with the buffing wheels and the compounds on my electric drill. The results are amazing. You won't get it done in an afternoon but it's not that bad. I'd guess I've got 20 hours into my project, including the beadblasting.

If quick is your game then I'd paint them silver and wait 'til you have more time to work with them.

[jpnovak]

If you were in our area I would powder coat them for you. perfect to hold up against the salt and debris on the way to the slopes.

[kellzey]

Powdercoating!!!! They have some metallics now that look great...

[jyl]

Nate (and others), what do you think about me polishing the rim lips mounting the tires, using the car for a week of skiing, then finishing the polishing and doing the painting? In other words, the raw bead-blasted surface will be exposed to the elements for a week or so. Do you think the raw surface will be damaged?

Jamie and Karl, I think powdercoating would be the most practical but I'm actually sort of curious to try the polishing - might give me confidence to work on Fuchs someday.

[dvkk]

I've seen fully polished cookies. They polish up better than a typical cast wheel, but not as nice as Fuchs.
If you wanted polished lips, the fast way to do it is on the car. Place the car on jack stands, mount one wheel (without valve stem) onto the rear and start the car in gear. By the time your confidence is up, you will be in high gear.

[n8marx]

I wouldn't be too concerned about the beadblasted surface being exposed to the elements. You're going to sand it off anyway right?

By the way, if these are ski trip specific wheels why do you want to polish them? Won't they get beat up and corroded really quick? Or were you going to clear-coat them afterwards?

[jyl]

Yeah, good question. I think I'm just being overly anal.

Originally posted by n8marx

By the way, if these are ski trip specific wheels why do you want to polish them? Won't they get beat up and corroded really quick? Or were you going to clear-coat them afterwards?

[thomas j]

John,
If you want a "servicably cheap" finish try a paint conditioner product called Penitrol
I used it on some blasted Fuch track wheels and it worked great.Better paint stores will carry it,rub it with a lint free cloth. It will darken the wheel a little bit,so test it out first to see if you like it.

Best ,
Thomas

[jyl]

I spent about 3 hours today sanding the rims with 220, 300, 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper. Two of the wheels cleaned up really nicely.

The other two still have pitting on the rims. It looks like the original flaking clearcoat allowed the aluminium to corrode quite a bit in numerous spots. To smooth the surface enough to permit polishing, I'd have to sand off a non-trivial amount of material. Too much work for these wheels.

Oh well, they look fine from 10 feet away, a nice brushed aluminium look.

I'm going to do a bit more sanding, then paint the centers, clear-coat the rims and call it done. For appx $70/each (everything but labor) they'll be decent extra wheels.

[Doug&Julie]

Resurecting an old thread here because I just bought some cookies on eBay for my early car and I plan to have them beadblasted so I can paint them. I figured I'd just (prime, paint, clear) them with Wurth Satin Silver and leave it at that. (..my brown car won't look good with black wheels, IMO.)

John, do you have any pics of your finished wheels? (..if you still have them?) How far around the rim does one paint? ..in other words, when tires have to be mounted, we don't want that process to damage the paint, right? Do we paint to the edge of the rim or go around it to the back side? (..am I making any sense?)

Thanks!