Polishing lips, DIY

[JordanByrneJ07]

Thought id share the refurb im doing on some SSR Meshies
Before and mid refurb attached, hopefully the final wont be far away

I don't know how anyone can enjoy polishing!!! although seeing the finished porduct is pretty cool

Still lots to go...

[nelius]

Hey guys, just picked up some Ronal R9 wheels. The lips and faces have some oxidation, but the problem is that the inside of the spokes are painted and I would like to keep the original color. My question is, do I have to using stripper or can I just sand the clear coat off using 180 grit or similar? The paint is in great shape and I really don't want to accidentally ruin it with stripper.

[staystetti]

yeah, wheel wax will set you straight. I think wheel whores makes some good stuff.

[ramong24]

What do you recommend to "seal" the aluminum? I have some RS lips that were polished but I didn't do that, so some oxidation is showing around the bolts. I'm taking them apart this winter and redoing them. Or is that what the wax is for?

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

You can use a vibratory tumbler, but if they're not heavily pitted, I find it just as easy to just chuck them up in a drill and polish them that way.

[fastcar]

Any tips on polishing the hardware (bolts) ? I heard you can use a tumble ?
Thanks

[hellah fresh]

I didnt use any sanding machine on these wheels because it has curves and im afraid of sanding too much off making the face look uneven. Sofar im doing all of this by hand and i think i might have it down. Going to make my own thread on this refinish.

[LeemansJ]

Use an orbital sanding machine and sand the pitting out ? I think sanding pitting out is less time-consuming then curb damage. this is more uniform...

[hellah fresh]

I didn't quite throughly do my research but i bought the aircraft paint stripper in the can Smh. Realizing that i didn't work too well i got a little impatience from just ordering the quart and this is the result. Yup the pitting sucks! Im planning on polishing the entire face thats y i thought i just media blast it.

[zoo]

Why blast vs stripping? The pitting is a bitch to sand out.

[hellah fresh]

I just got my wheels back from media blasting and they did a very good job on removing all of the old paint. Now that i have it in the raw metal stage the media blast have left fine pits on the surface of these wheels. Im going to start out with the 400grit and eventually move up to 2000+ grit. I just want to know at what point will i need to apply water to wet sand it? or do i just apply water starting with the 400 grit?









This is what it looked like before i had them blasted:

damn those are so sparklaaay!

[Teggin]

Starting on the faces of my works. Going from silver to polished.

[newcastle90]

Polishing "non-polished" wheels

Hey great thread you got here! I just have a few questions about my wheels that i could use some advise on...

My wheels are 4x100 13x6.5 and are not stock polished. The lips and spokes as you can tell in the pictures have never had a polished surface and have very fine groove lines in them. My plan is to polish the lips and spokes and refinish the inside painting them black. Is there any way you know of to remove these grooves and get the mirror finish of a proper polished wheel? I've used a angle grinder and 3M scotch brite pads on one of them but cant seem to effectively remove the lines to get a good polish and am considering just painting the whole wheel black instead of polished/black. Thanks for your advise on wheel polish thus far! Great work!

[azerbaijan]

Nice grills and rides

I haven;t gathered enough courage to do that by myself. Thanks for the inspiration