So a buddy of mine gave me so wheels, for free. They where kinda of banged up and thats why i'm paintiung them myself. First off i'm using the faq on the site for wheel painting which is a big help. Does anyone have a problem with getting down to bare metal with the aircraft stripper? Or have a easier way of doing it? Stripping the paint off is taking alot of time, is that normal? Well heres some pics for your amusment.

prepping


ya two of the wheels dont have tires on them


dont get the stuff in the can it sucks


get the good stuff, the brush on


The one on the left the paint does not want to come off


Primered, then i will do a light wet sand then paint it. painting it bronze


going to try and make this honda center cap work. i have two of them. they came off the steelies. going to try to find two more at a wrecking yard. think they will look alright?

 

I don't personally like the wheels, but thumbs up for the work done!

 

no offense taken. i'm just glad my first set of wheels i'm painting are free and if i f them up i will just learn from my mistakes. thanks for the reply man, appreciate the input.

 

I am in the process of redoing a set of 18 inch Konig flights i picked up for nothing also. Thay have a little curbage but nothing a little time and sandpaper cant take out. I will also be refinishing them myself prolly with a rattle bomb. Looks good so far man.

 

so i got a couple of coats of color on the first wheel and not liking it. probably should have spent more time on getting down to bare metal. first time painting wheels let alone painting. if the next one doesnt turn out nice and i put 100% into it then i will leave it to the pros. i think if you cant do it right dont do it at all. will post pic of wheel tommorrow.

 

Free FTW

 

From my understanding, It's better to paint on top of the existing wheel coating, for durability sake. Painting aluminum isn't exactly like painting steel. With aluminum, the finished product is never as durable as it's steel counterpart, because raw aluminum is covered in invisible aluminum oxide, rendering it more inert to atmospheric corrosion than steel, but because of its inertness paints and coatings tend not to stick well.

Then again, I'm no big city aircraft mechanic (stretches out bright red suspenders).