From factory painted wheels to Polished Aluminum

[thabomb180]

that looks great, did you use the wire wheel with the aircraft remover still on the rim, or did you wash or wipe it off first?

Also, after you use the wire wheel, did you use sandpaper on them??

[AllTheGoodNamesAreGone]

good work so far.. i like it.. keep it up..

[Domestic Violence]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by thabomb180:
that looks great, did you use the wire wheel with the aircraft remover still on the rim, or did you wash or wipe it off first?

Also, after you use the wire wheel, did you use sandpaper on them??<hr></blockquote>


i used sandpaper on some of it with the aircraft stripper. if you don't wipe it off, it dries and it's just like sanding paint again.

the wire dremel bit makes them shinier than sandpaper, but my dremel won't last long enough for an entire wheel.

[thabomb180]

So after you used the wire wheel, you just put the aluminum polish on??
I thought the wire wheel would just scratch them up alot.
Is there a specific dremel wire wheel to use??

sorry about all the questions, i just want to make sure i have no questions before i start doing this.

[Domestic Violence]

i'd experiment. you can't screw them up. if you scratch them, you can sand it out. the wire dremel bit does make them shine a little better. the only draw back is it wants to grab and that makes some scratches. i'm going to look for a polishing wheel and see if that helps. what i've done so far is sand going up in grit to get the scratches out then put some polish on them.

[Pewter2k Formula]

Looks really good [img]smile.gif[/img]

[nikon]

funny I though all our wheels were cast, not aluminum...well I know my chromies are cast at least....lookin good man [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] but I dont wanna know how hard it was to get into all the "webbed" parts of the wheel.....BTW are those the Z28 wheels?

[fantomfreke]

hey dv you need to get some of these. this plus a taper buff, and some tripoli then maybe some jewers rouge is what im using on mine next week. ive used the midget buffs with the tripoli compound on stainless motorcycle pipes.

[Quijeeboe]

Justin, there is such a thing as cast aluminum. Casting is just a forming process. Basically any molten metal injected into a mold is cast. The other common process of forming metal is forging where a metal is pressed into shape without superheating the metal into its molten form. This allows for the metal to actually gain a higher tensile strength due to the fact it is extremely dense. While casting can lead to imperfections in the metal and it generally weaker than any forged part.

[jfbird]

DV, how much $$$ have you spent on materials?

[Domestic Violence]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by jfbird:
DV, how much $$$ have you spent on materials?<hr></blockquote>


probably about $30 so far. i just bought some emory cloth. it's works awesome. it removes the paint faster than the stripper. it does require elbow grease, but it works really good. it doesn't crap out as fast as sandpaper. i should have the second rim done in a few hours.

[TheV6Bird]

How fast is your Dremel operating at?

I have a Craftsman Rotary tool (Same as Dremel) with only one speed: 35,000 RPM (eat that, VTEC [img]tongue.gif[/img] )

[thabomb180]

Where do you get emory cloth? I never heard of it before. So this cloth will take the place of the stripper?

[Domestic Violence]

i'm using the stripper and then cleaning the rest with emory cloth. i got it at the auto parts store.

my battery powered dremel has 2 speeds, 7K rpm and 15K rpm. :(

[nikon]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Quijeeboe:
Justin, there is such a thing as cast aluminum. Casting is just a forming process. Basically any molten metal injected into a mold is cast. The other common process of forming metal is forging where a metal is pressed into shape without superheating the metal into its molten form. This allows for the metal to actually gain a higher tensile strength due to the fact it is extremely dense. While casting can lead to imperfections in the metal and it generally weaker than any forged part.<hr></blockquote>


I know what casting and forging is, I thought our rims were cast-iron though....not aluminum...