Painting Rims! How do I do it?

[ribbert]

Mmmm, Powdercoating vs Paint?........ paid a lot more than $50.00 per wheel to get done, ($250.00 per wheel with the hub)

Bloody Hell Ray, for that sort of money I'd want gold too!

Noel

[X-Ray]

Yeah, when he told me his pricing I nearly fell over, but when I saw just what he had done when I picked them up, wow. I didn't give what I paid a second thought then. ( But the next set of rims off the '94 will be a spray can job, not as flush with money these days )

[Troyskie]

G'day Al, the FZR rim on Yummy looks similar to Bones' one & I'll be learning with rattle can.

It looks ok in this pic, but is pretty chipped and scratched. Plus someone put a lot of hate into a tyre doing a burnout that must have wrapped a lot of wire around the hub.

[X-Ray]

Are you keeping that tyre Troy? If not, get it removed and sand down the rim/paint it with a good spray can paint like Bones and Noel have done, should look great. I spent days spray painting the 4 wheels off our Navara a few years back, sanding /priming/topcoat/clearcoat, and they turned out alright. Stay away from the $2.00 a can supercheap export paint whatever you do, and I find a good clearcoat over the finished colour coat really helps. Looks like a fun project 

[Sparky84]

G'day Al, the FZR rim on Yummy looks similar to Bones' one & I'll be learning with rattle can.

G'day Troy
I'm hoping to have both front and rear FZR rims this week, and I might wait to hear how you went with the rattler.
Or tips you might have like "get it Powdercoated".
The thing that worries me is it's a finished product on show for all to see and if it don't look good I'll keep on noticing it always,
Mate I don't even like getting my vehicles repaired as I think a all dent is better than some idiot spraying a slightly different colour and buffing half a existing panel and changing the colour look so it's more noticeable than a small dent.

Cheers Alan

[Bones]

Sparky, I don't think anyone will get on their hands and knees to inspect your handiwork anyway, a passing glance maybe but nothing more. Who gives a shit what anybody else thinks anyway, it's you bike modify it your way. My rims aren't perfect and I know it, but from a distance they look passable and that's OK by me.

[ribbert]

Sparky, Bones nailed it, no one looks that closely. It's like guys stripping their bikes completely to paint the frame, how much of the frame do you see when it's back together? Hardly any.

It's time to get the monkey off your back, man up and have a crack at it, it's only paint. If you muck it up, sand it off and do it again and when the jobs done how good will you feel knowing you've done it yourself, let alone the the $500 you didn't spend!

The principles of spray painting are simple, there must be a gazillion how to videos on You Tube. Before you waste the proper wheel paint, practice with a can of cheap stuff. Don't over complicate it. You don't need primer and you don't need clear coat over the top. Just make sure the wheels are clean, as in grease free. If you don't have any prepsol, dishwashing liquid will get rid of any grease, just make sure to rinse thoroughly.

Buy one of these from any hardware shop, makes it easier, it just snaps onto the top of the can.





Turns any spray can into a spray gun.

A story for another day but I have sprayed literally hundreds of used and damaged wheels. As you are obliged to move at a certain speed when spraying, each wheel should take no longer than a couple of minutes to paint once prepared. It's that quick and easy.

If it doesn't work out as well as you hoped, just lift some shots from the net and post them as the finished job. No one's ever going to look closely enough to know and by the time the next rally rolls around, everyone will have forgotten this thread and won't even look at your wheels. I can't even imagine a spray job so bad peoples eyes will be drawn to it.

IMO

Noel

[X-Ray]

I do like those spray can adaptors in your photos Noel, never seen them before but they are now on my "to get" list.