Fuch Wheel Refinish - Mid Project - What is this? Pictures

[JackMan]

Hi

I'm refinishing my Fuchs and got the paint off. Now I have this one spot on the lip where it looks like the anodized finish came off or was already off before I started the cleaning/refinishing. (I don't have before pixs.)

Any ideas on what happened here?



On the lip there are some grooves, any ideas on how to get these out of the finish? Sanding?




And here is a gratuitous shot of the wheel siting on the bench, just cause I have like, a ton of work in the wheel, and it looks really cool perched up there on the altar. Three more wheels to go. They will go much quicker. There is a steep learning curve in doing the first wheel.




Thanks to all that have written up their thoughts and ideas on refinishing Fuchs.

Merry Christmas.

Wellborn

[kilodawg]

Well I've refinished two sets of these over the past couple of years and though it's always tough to tell things for certain by pictures alone there really isn't much it can be other than a spot where the anodizing has been removed. So I guess it depends what your final goals are before proceeding further.

Both of these were completely stripped of paint and anodizing.

The first one with the polished lip had the center painted silver



The second in the traditional early car style with the Scotch-Brite satin finish

[JackMan]

I thought it was anodized finish that had been removed. I hadn't planned on that. Looks like I'm off to the store for some oven cleaner, strip it all, polish it and repaint.

Out of curiousity, what did you use to strip the paint and the anodized finish?

wj

[kilodawg]

For paint I used aircraft stripper, for the anodizing Easy-Off oven cleaner. The original kind in the yellow can. Not the stuff in the blue can that won't work....

[JackMan]

Thanks KiloDawg, nice work on those wheels. To get the satin scotch brite look, what did you do? Polish the entire wheel with a green scotch brite pad and they spray with a clear coat?

wj

[rching]

"Green scotchbrite and clear coat??" We want to know!

[kilodawg]

I think the term Scotch-Brite is a slight misnomer.

I got the technique from a post on the forum. Do a search for some of the really detailed write-ups.

The pads used are actually obtained from a body shop supply store. They are very common. As I recall 3M makes them. They come in two "grit" levels red is like medium and gray is fine. Something like that anyway, but they are similar to Scotch-Brite pads in their appearance only the pads are larger. I went over the wheels with the red first and then the gray and it ties together the finish of the wheel real well.

I chose not to clear coat them. The car isn't a daily driver and therefore they won't be getting much abuse. I figured I could touch them up again with the pads if necessary and then wipe them down with Naptha as needed to keep them clean. I wasn't sure how the clear would last. However, it's possible that if you could get the right clear and it covered well they would look really sweet and give even more depth to the metal..

[Paulporsche]

Has anyone tried using vaseline on wheels that have had the anodizing stripped and then not clear coated?

[kilodawg]

I've done it but it doesn't do much, certainly not a magic cure for anything