Yet another wheel polishing adventure

[stormin48061]

Knuckled down on refinishing the 16x7 wheels I bought here a while ago to match the polished finish of my other 2 wheels. I forgot how I refinished the other wheels, so I reconstructed thru a search here and from memory. Below are the steps I did starting from a OEM 16.x7 black paddles and anodized lips. I wore those blue rubber nitrile gloves all the way, to save my fingers.

1. Aircraft paint stripper to remove black paint. Two applications.

2. Tried oven off in the yellow can, three applications. Took too long so I went to Lowes and bought a small container of drain de-clogger (Sodium hydroxide). mIxed up a paste, 2 applications. As pointed out elsewhere, if you see spottiness or scalling embedded in the rim, the anodizing is still there.

3 (a). Left the anodizing on too long and got black spots ..... as posted elsewhere, so I went down to my local lab friend and he mixed me up a 15% solution of nitric acid as posted elsewhere on PP. Works like a charm and beware, the stuff is corrosive, use gloves, wear your oldest clothes... it'll bite right thru your skin skin skin! This is picture 1, see the black spots from leaving the anodizing remover on too long?



3(b). I'm adding this picture of sanding with 180 grit as this is an important step in the process. To really really get your target mirror finish with white rouge buffing (and red rouge buffing) , you need to spend the extra effort at this stage. If you don't, what will happen after you go thru the effort of sanding with the other grit sandpaper, is that the white rouge buffing will magnify any scratches, ruts and poor sanding job you put in at the 180 grit stage. If you buff this poor sanding job, you will notice that the surface is not getting that mirror finish that you're looking for. What happens is the buffing wheel turns black from the polishing compound, and this black residue, embeds itself in the crevices, lines and pitting that you didn't sand out in the 180 grit stage that remain in the surface of your rim. The all you see is the black crap on the surface and I'm telling ya all you see is the black crap, the lines, the crevices etc etc that you thought you go out. The extra effort to get the pitting out at the 180 grit stage pays dividends to the final product. On my second wheel I had much much more pitting than the first wheel and I ended up going back to the 180 grit stage to resand. I didn't think of taking a picture of the white rouge buffing to show what I ended up with (which was a really really ****ty finish, not worthy at all!!). Going back to the 180 grit stage, I spent another hour or so wet sanding, going through about 10 pieces of 180 grit 6" sanding disc just to get the pitting and scratches off the paddles and lips... ( and a couple of beers to grease it along). If you see any "crinkling" of the surface, and you really hafta get up close and look, you need to sand more. That crinkling is pitting which will trap the black residue when you try to buff with rouge. In the picture, I used a red marker to highlight the pitting I'm talking about. I"m almost done the wheel, when I had a eureka moment and said I'd better take a pic and update the post to help others avoid what I just went through. As you can see, the red ink from the marker embedded itself in the pitting. This is what you want to get out of the surface to get that mirror polished finish you are after. You really gotta get up close to the surface to see this pitting because it is really faint and from 6 inches away, you really can't see it, but oh boy, will you see it when you polish it white rouge. I guess you can do a guide coat like the final wet sand for a paint job to help out, and probably should have.. oh well live and learn.. I couldn't add the pic here so I wll add it as a separate post at the bottom. Notice the red ink inthe pitting? that is what you are sanding out a the 180 stage.


4. Now the finger tip wear out begins. All sanding was done wet, I just used a drizzle out of the hose instead of the bucket. Don't cheap out and try to use any sandpaper till it has no medium left, all you're doing is beating yourself up, cuz the sandpaper won't cut anymore. For each step I sanded, I used a half a sheet of paper, so that's pretty cheap. Ok, because there were some curb rash and some scoring along the lip of the wheel, sanding the whole wheel, I started with 180 grit sandpaper, followed in order by 220 grit, 320 grit, 400 grit, 500 grit, 600 grit... after 600 grit it looked like this.




5. Then I hit it with 1000 grit and 2000 grit. When I was sanding with 1000 grit, it got to the point where it felt like I was sanding glass. Didn't take long probably about 10 mins to sand the wheel with each girt. The 2000 grit just made it much smoother. Picture after 2000 grit




6. After rinsing and wiping down the wheel, I started with black rouge, but realized that I was wasting my time, so I just went to the white rouge, using those little polishing wheels you can buy at Harbour Freight for cheap, on a ordinary drill. Here a pic of two paddles done with white rouge polishing. 10 and 12 o'clock paddles.




7. It did occur to me to skip the rouge stage and go to the blue magic polish route, because after 2000 grit, that wheel looked damn good, but I wanted a mirror finish. Here is the wheel finished polished white rouge.



8. Then I hit it with red rouge and finished it off with a quick polish with blue magic wheel polish.



From 10 feet it is hard to tell in the picture the difference between white rouge and red rouge polish, but up close you would be able to see that the surface has less micro scratches on it.

And now one more to do and I'm done... Hope you enjoyed this write up.

[blucille]

Great post

[Jdub]

Did the same as you years back with the 6"/7" Fuchs - used water between each session/grit to clear out the old for the newer.

I was so tired after stripped the 6"'ers, I had a chrome shop drop my 7" anodized wheels in their strip tanks for about 5 min and it worked perfectly, tho I understand you want to be careful with this method.

[Reifle]

Fantastic! Labour of love!!

[RSBob]

Great work. Be sure to clear coat your wheels when done so you don't end up with pitting and corrosion.

[LakeCleElum]

Subscribed and Rated.......... *****

[stormin48061]

thanks! no clear coat, that's what Saturday's and Sunday's are for and if you have a kid that drives it more than you do, I "suggest" to him that the beast needs a bath and proper waxing and polishing and that includes the wheels! Don't drive it in the winter so not much worry about corrosion and pitting. The friggin whole car is a labour of love, this is just part of the joy! Enjoy!

[stormin48061]

pic of the pitting... for step 3(b) above