Refinishing Style 5's

[kvalvik]

So i bought a set of style 5's the other day. Polished lips, and rattlecanned centers and bolts:




I started splitting them right away. The plan is to just do a touch up on the lips, polish the bolts, and new paint on centers.

I am almost done with the bolts. Soaked them in paint thinner, then in vinegar. Then i polished the heads. The old paint let go pretty easily because of poor quality. The bolts were very corroded.











Quite a job, but definately worth it

Now im trying to figure out what to do with the centers. Since they were painted with rattlecans on the original paint. Just by washing the wheels with a high pressure washer the paint startet to let go in some tight corners.

The center caps also had a lot of bubbles in the paint.



So i am wondering if someone can help me with how to proceed with the centers

Sand blasting? soda blasting maybe? or paint remover?

Are the centers alluminum? if so it wont be necessary to protect from rust if i strip the paint, right?


Considering the center caps are made of plastic, can i sodablast them without damaging the plastic?

[Exami]

Sorry for being rude, i did the same thing to my Styling 5 bolts, after that, on first rain those got rusty.. so i hope you dont endup having the same problem..

[kvalvik]

Well ive been thinking about that. The bolts and nuts rusted right after i took them out of the vinegar. Im polishing the heads with autosol, a product that lays a layer that protects against rust. After i polished them they stopped rusting, and it hasnt come back yet. Doing the same thing to the nuts. I'l just wait and see how they turn out i think ill be fine.

[TeckniX]

Nice technique with the drill for polishing bolts.
Looking forward to the re-finished wheels.

[kvalvik]

Thankyou All bolts and nuts are polished up now. Started at the barrels today, which was a mess. More pics will come tomorrow

still stuck on what to do with the centers/centercaps tho. Tried sodablasting the caps today, didnt work very well, so im still open for suggestions

[1badg35]

best way is to use an industrial grade stripper to remove all of the paint, and then media blast the faces to remove whatever is left on there. will leave you with an even surface to then finish as you want

[kvalvik]

well i have paint stripper and soda and sand blasting equipment. So il just start stripping them down this weekend The faces are aluminum too right? so they wont rust? kinda important considering that i live in norway. Cold and wet

[kvalvik]

Ok so i did some work yesterday.
The barrels were all yuckie


Lots of old glue from weights and such. and LOTS of road dust.

Started with some heavy duty industrial degreaser and a wirebrush.
Cleaned it up pretty good, then went over the corroded areas with sand paper and a dremel.



Its starting to come along plan is to give the barrels some layers of silver paint. Nothing big, just getting them in decent condition.


So that leaves me with the centers.

Never did paint stripping before, turned out to be a lot harder than i thought it would be.








Didnt get all the paint off, but its a start. My high pressure washer kinda sucks, so that might be the problem. The paint stripper i used is called Reprin. It didnt really start to bubble up, like in videos on youtube and such. It just looked like the paint cracked up.

Bought a proper sodablasting gun today, so im going to try some more layers of stripper tomorrow, then sodablasting.

[entiobrin]

Right,All bolts and nuts are polished up now. Started at the barrels today, which was a mess. More pics will come tomorrow

[Welfare]

Paint stripper is horrible stuff. I just did a 3 hour stint on one barrel. Just need some finer sand paper to tidy up a few spots.

[kvalvik]

Right,All bolts and nuts are polished up now. Started at the barrels today, which was a mess. More pics will come tomorrow

what?

Paint stripper is horrible stuff. I just did a 3 hour stint on one barrel. Just need some finer sand paper to tidy up a few spots.

Yea.. bought some acetone and some heavier stripper. and im bringing the centers to work tomorrow, where we have a massive monster high pressure washer
Hopefully that will do the trick


the sodablaster does a killer job on small spots tho there is just too much left on mine to sodablast it all.