I got a pair of cobras from a friend. They have some scratches and chips in the paint on the rims. I was wondering if i could strip the paint from them and then polish them. I have a little air powered polisher that works really good.
if you strip the paint, you're still gonna have to sand the crap out of the wheels to get them very smooth if you want a good, chrome-like polished aluminum look. It's very labor intensive
you shoudl find out what kind of chemical strippers you can get that wont hurt the wheels, otherwise, to get the paint off, i would be wary taking it off w/ sand paper, but use 400 wet, and change paper every 5 minutes lol your gonna have a hell of a time, than once all paint is off, sand with finer and finer wet papers till you get to about 2000-2500 WET and than dry off really good, and get some 3M compound and the labor starts all over again, crevices suck, hope everything works well for you!!
Paul Perreca
if you strip the paint, you're still gonna have to sand the crap out of the wheels to get them very smooth if you want a good, chrome-like polished aluminum look. It's very labor intensive
But if your mind is made up and you're going to polish the rims I'd suggest.
(1)Remove the tire from the rim.
(2) Use Aircraft Paint stripper to remove the clear and powder coating.
(3) Depending on how bad the casting is on the rims is where you start with what grit sand paper, but I think I'd start with 180or 220 grit sandpaper and finish with 600 grit sand paper. Then Buff with Tripoli on a Ventilated Flap buffing wheel, and polish with White Rouge on a Spiral Sewn Buffing Wheel.
Eastwood has a kit just for polishing wheels, heres a direct link- http://www.eastwood.com/shopping/pr...temType=PRODUCT&RS=1&itemID=951&keyword=13105
They also have a paint stripper (item# 34069Z) but any good aircraft stripper should work. After you have them all polished up its a good idea finish them off with a coat of clear like Eastwoods diamond clear (item# 10200Z) Oh and I'm not affiliated with Eastwood in any way, they just have some great products.
i was doing some thinking and i am probably just going to put them on the way they are for now, maybe when i get some more money in the future just get a new set of wheels, since they really arent that bad.