Polishing

[RadRacer]

Rims, not the car. Who's done it? I'm looking at buying some cheap aluminum rims and polishing them up myself. The put a layer of clear coat on, and I should be set. How hard should it be, and how long did it take you?

[hockeyman]

Re: Polishing

I attempted to polish the salad shooters once, and one wheel took me about 9 hours. Between dry sanding to remove most of the paint, wetsanding to smooth out, buffing with compounding and finally polishing, it was too much time from my day. I gave up after one wheel and installed WS6 wheels.

If you have a sandblaster, then it should dramatically cut the labor time.

[Shirl]

Re: Polishing

What kind of wheels are they? I use to have polished aluminum Weld draglites and I screwed them up with wheel cleaner. (I sprayed the tires and it dripped down onto the wheels and stained the hell out of them). It took me at least 4 hours to polish each one out with compound, polish, a buffer, and finally by hand. I will NEVER buy polished wheels again. Also, if you decide to take on this task, DO NOT use clearcoat on them when you're done, it looks like crap because it dulls the shine that you worked so hard to achieve in the first place.

[RadRacer]

Re: Polishing

OK. And I do have a sand blaster available.

[Tradition_F]

Re: Polishing

what rims are you trying to polish?

[RadRacer]

Re: Polishing

None yet. I was hoping to find a cheap set of IRocs to put on. I looooove the look of them and the wider stance looks dead sexy :P I was just wondering if it'd be worth it to find some and polish them up, or to just buy chromed ones.

[StrtRacer98]

Re: Polishing

You dont want to use a sand blaster.. you want to use a belt sander or something to get the paint off them , then the rest is all done by hand.

A sandblaster will pit the surface.

& like said before, you dont clearcoat after you polish, but polished wheels need alot of attention to keep them looking nice after getting dirty or washed or whatever.