Hey guys well i painted my stockies low gloss black this week and they came out really nice but one of them i might have rushed and it came out a little rough and paint wasnt to even to the level i want it. Im not much of a paint junkie so i wanted to ask before i did this. Would it be ok to just sand down the face of the rim again and just paint it or would i have to completely sand down the rim again inbetween the spokes and everything? can i just cover it up sand and paint the face again?

 

sand it down with like a 600 grit,clean it,and respray

 

yea thats what i figured just wanted to hear from the mouth of another fellow fitfreaker... I guess i'll take thurs this week to do it over. Im just cover the inbetween parts and the face over on one of the wheels and on another i saw a small chip i gota repaint over but man does the car look night and day better than it did with stock wheels.

 

if you have access to it, sandblast the rims!! and start FRESH! the stock wheels are painted and machined. so there's smooth surfaces. sand blasting it will make the surface a bit rough, therefore giving the paint somewhere to stick!!

 

i already painted them so is sandblasting still a option?

 

ehhh.. it'd give you a FRESH start. then repaint.

 

ive read through some forums and postings online and some people say that sanblasting might be too rough?!?! but it sucks that its my DD so i can never give it more than a day to sit and cure. I think i might just wait till finals are over in the next couple weeks and when summer comes try to do them all over. but for now i guess i will resand and repaint the ones that came out a little rough

 

It depends on the paint sometimes too. I know when I used Duplicolor spray cans even if it sat for weeks the paint has a weird tacky film after sanding.

It never sanded smooth for me. Id have to sand REALLY light, any kind of pressure would make the paint wad up. I thought it was weird, and only Duplicolor.
If you sand blast them, sand them with a higher grit after so theyre smooth to the touch. Sand blasting will just remove everything faster.

 

hmm you know where i can get a sandblaster here in orlando... might do that over the summer then. Im really just looking for a quick fix for now, damn roads in orlando have so much debris.

My driver side ones came out good but i found a small paint chip already during work right. The passenger ones are the rough ones that dont look the best... I did use duplicolor paint and i bought that clear coat they have at autozone for rims its in a blue can i dont know if you have seen it but i think the clear coat could have come out better.

 

thats odd ive had nothing but good experiences with dupli color. when i painted the stockers on my old accord they came out great. this is what i did...

1.took them to the car washed and cleaned well
2.sanded them down with a really rough grit. then cleaned them to remove any debris from the sanding.
3.gave the wheels a thick coating of air craft paint stripper (it comes in a tall aerosol can, you can find it at auto zone). let it sit for a good 20-30 minutes

**this stuff is caustic! be sure to wear thick rubber gloves and eye protection if possible. if it gets on your skin you will know right away there is no burn like one from a chemical paint stripper**

4.now use some sort of flat scraping device to scrape off the gel. i used an old starbucks gift card. its a timely proccess and was not my favorite part in any way. be sure to try and scrape as much of the paint stripper off as possible. remember your not just scrapping off the stripper your scrapping off the factory clear coat. the more you get now the better the wheels will come out.
5.once youve done as much scrapping as possible wash the wheels off as good as you can.
6.either let the wheels dry or dry them off with some sort of cloth.
7.now take some more sand paper to the wheels. use a medium grit sand paper. sand down every area that you will be spraying extremely well so the paint has some surface to adhere to. be sure to clean them to get rid of any dust and debris from the sanding before you move on.
8.i did not do this with my wheels but did this on my intake manifold cover and it works great. give the wheels one even coat of duplicolors clear primer, this stuff drys in like five minutes. it just helps the paint stick better.
9.this step is not neccessary either but it is better if you let the wheels sit for 30-1hr to dry well.
10.now for your paint i also used duplicolor flat black. what i did was start with 2 very light coats waiting 15 minutes between each coat. after your second coat wait another 15 minutes and apply a medium coat. wait 20 minutes and apply your last coat, give it a good heavy coating but be sure that is evenly distributed to avoid any runs in the paint.
11.now let sit until they are dry to touch, but be careful when testing this. you dont want any finger prints on your wheels.
12. once they are dry and can some what be handled carefully move them some where preferebly indoors where they can sit for two days. its best to let them sit for 2-7 days for the paint to cure properly.
13. after they have sat (for no less than 2 days) give them a good inspection, check for spots that you might have missed, runs in the paint, basically for things that are aesthetically unappealing.
14.if your happy with the finish you can mount them, if your not you can give them 1 or 2 more light coats. clear coat if you choose. just beware that when using duplicolor flat black and duplicoler clear coat it gives off this weird rainbow effect. like how water on the road looks when there is oil in it. it may sound cool but it doesnt look cool, i made the mistake of applying the clear coat to one wheel and had to strip it down and re do the whole procces because of how it looked.

but yea, that is how i painted my old wheels and they came out great. i had them on the car for about six months before i totaled it... fun fact, in a head on collision at sixty five miles per hour the paint held up. the only part of my wheel that was with out paint was the part that ate a curb after the impact. i dont know why but one of the first things that came to mind when i got out of the car was to check the wheels. there was a huge scrape along the rim but the paint around it wasnt peeling or chipping. hope this helps some one, it sure helped me. im at work and have nothing to do. please excuse any bad spelling or grammar. i am no english major and dont really care for spell checking my work.

 

if you need to restart and cant sand blast them, you should look into that aircraft paint stripper i talked about in my last post. the stuff eats through everything and if done well you can remove the paint and the factory clear finish from the wheels to start with a fresh canvas. just be careful, when i say it eats through everything i mean it. i have the scars on my hand and fore arms to prove it.

 

As long as you sanded the rims before painting the first time the paint should be permanently set to the wheels so if you were to get any of the runs or imperfections out with sanding, you should be fine to repaint as long as you scuff up the entire wheel and clean the surface. There should be NO need to sand/media blast the wheels to get the paint to adhere, and if you take your time sanding you will get the imperfections out.

start with a 320 grit then go to a 400 grit to blend the areas of variation, and finally use a 600ish grit to get the desired application surface.

Clean the wheel(s) with alcohol (paint prep cleaner, or the stuff the previous poster said would be fine) after spraying off with water and wiping down with a cloth.

wipe away any left over particles with a dry cloth and tape around tire lip if necessary.

Use SEVERAL THIN COATS allowing to dry for time recommended on the spray can (usually between 10 and 20 minutes) before spraying with the next layer.

For added gloss buy a spray on durable clear using the same method AFTER the paint has FULLY dried.



I have painted several sets of wheels this way, and I have made mistakes. This is what i have learned over the years, and this is what I do to correct the problems. Hope this helps, and be ure to tell us what you did and post up some pics MAN!!!!!

$0.02

 

For your case I would just sand down the face of the wheel ( ALL OF IT) and then obviously clean it up again then paint evenly across the surface again. When I sprayed my Fit wheels I messed up one of them, I tried sanding down just that one area and doing that but I could never get it even again and had to sand down the whole surface again and go over the whole thing again.

 

yea I have a can and a half left so i should be able to redo my passenger side over

paintstrippper also sounds like a great plan to instead of sandblasting if you wanna remove the paint. but will it messup the tire in anyway? and what do you wipe it off with regular cloth?

 

the paint stripper wont get to the tire as long as you mask it off properly. i my self didnt use tape i shoved index cards between the rim and the tire. the stripper is sprayed on, then scraped off with a hard flat object (like a credit card or putty knife), then the wheel is washed well with cold water. then use a towel or some other cloth to dry them off and remove any thing you missed when washing.

 

well i basically use aircraft paint remover. and just let that sit. wipe it off, wash the wheel. light sand with a high grit sand paper....

then i go to home depot. find any color that loooks good to me. shoot it on, for the first time i just shoot like 7-8 coats. i think clear makes it look dull, so i never use it.

um usually i just mask off the tire, and shove index cards aswell.
if i could afford them to be without tires, i would heh.

i also spray the back of the rim too when the front is dried.that way it doesnt looks so painted, it actually looks like it comes stock that way.

 

i did this with my wheels to. i cant stand to see with half ass jobs of painting the wheels. just boils my blood, wheels are one of the most looked at parts of any vehicle. if your going to do it your self at least put some time into it and try to make it look good instead of rushing just for the sake of some sweet looking stockers. i only rant because i have made the mistake of rushing, im still bitter. one set of fat 5's down the tube