not quite nagaro, not quite polished lips

[gszczyrb]

copycat ;)

looks good :P

Thanks. The camera lies though. Mine isn't factory nagaro like yours. In person, it look much darker. Not bad, but your's rock.

[mgold]

Anyone have a link for a DIY to refinish wheels. I would like to do something fun with my bottlecaps sometime in the future...probalby just end up blacking out the centers.

Try this..

http://www.duplicolor.com/projects/howto_wheel.html

[Digitalwave]

What kind of paint did you use? For both you and Nando: did you paint the lips first, then mask the lips off and paint the spokes?

[gszczyrb]

What kind of paint did you use? For both you and Nando: did you paint the lips first, then mask the lips off and paint the spokes?

I think nando used the stuff from paintscratch.com, but you better check with him first. I used Dupolicolor Graphite. It doesn't match the nagaro as well as it looks in the picture. It is definitely darker, but also much cheaper.

Actually, my lips aren't painted. So far they are just bare metal. I was sanding the damn things so much to get some of the imperfections out that I figured I might as well go the whole way. Yes, I know that aren't polished bright, but that was my intention originally. I'm not sure what I am going to do now. 1 - keep going with the sanding and polishing, or 2 - paint the lips.

My actual process was like this. (long)
- Send two wheels (Including the spare, I have two extra) off to be beadblasted.
- Machine shop had a hell of a time getting to coating off. Did an O.K. job, but left some behind. They didn't charge me anything though. They suggessted I bring them to a powedercoater. Not to have them coated, but to get the old coating off. I skipped it.
- Painted with sandable primer - dark grey. I did this so as I sanded the primer off I would be able to see the dents and imperfections in the wheels. Any place that primer remained I kept sanding there until all primer was gone.
- sanded the hell out of the things - especially the lips. A mixture of dremel and hand sanding using regular paper and sponges. Started with 80 grit, I think. Then 120 and/or 150. Finally something like 220 or 240 maybe. Sponges work best for the final sanding which I did wet. I should proabably go one more level with sanding, then use a drill and some ruby red to polish 'em. Haven't done that yet though.
- to be honest I didn't do much sanding in the spoke area. Its a PITA and when you look close, you can tell, but from 5 feet away, it looks fine.

[Digitalwave]

Thanks for the write up. I really need to refinish my throwing stars.

[nando]

TJ, I did the basecoat on the lips first, then taped that off and painted the center. I wasn't even going to attempt to try and tape off all those spokes!

[golde30]

this thread is sweet...im going to be painting the center of my 15"weaves also, but im doing mine bronze or gold...hehe