Polishing wheels

[Pillow]

This has probably been covered at some point but bear with me

Check out this procedure for polishing Dish wheels:
http://www.924.org/techsection/wheel_refinishing.htm

I have the same 6x16 Dish wheels and want to polish them out before mounting tires. But have some newbie Qs.

Is there an air tool to use for polishing instead of rubbing it out by hand for hours?

Once the wheel is polished should I spray it with some sort of clearcoat or protect it with some form of wax? Or just polish when it tarnishes every couple months

Thanks!

[wrenchnride247]

Have you checked out www.eastwood.com ? They have all kinds of ways to polish and protect glass, plastic, and metal Look under buffing/metal finish, and specialty coatings(diamond clear). I've used lots of their products for years.

[tom'72]

I use a very strong chemical paint remover (it has to soak in about 20 minutes) and then I use a paint strip tool or anything thats flat and sharp to scrape of most of the paint and then I start sanding away the last bits of paint with a grid 150 or smoother.
mine are in this thread: http://www.germanlook.com/Forums/sho...?t=5793&page=2
I keep sanding the surface smoother and smoother from a grid 220 up til a grid 2000(wet), where I can I use a small excentric electrical sander and the rest is done manually (takes a long time and do not forget to put some tape around your fingers to protect them).

[mrsmythe]

Adrian,

I polished my 7x16 928 flat discs last year (I need to finish the wheels out past the slots) and them came up really well

This is what i did

• To remove the lacquer I brushed Nitromors (brand of paint stripper sold in motor factors over here) on to the face of the wheels covering the lacquer in it.
• Go for a cup of tea or do something else for 15 - 20 mins whilst the paint stripper eats into the lacquer.
• I then hosed the wheels off removing most of the lacquer and peeling other bits off by hand.
• Then reapplied paint stripper to just those ares that still had lacquer on them and did something else for 15 mins
• This time instead of hosing them off I used wire wool and rubbed by hand the areas where the lacquer was still on the wheels
• This should get most of the lacquer off
• I then removed the black paint in the slots and in the accents behined the slots (removing the paint from the accents was the slowest part if teh whole process as it just didnt want to come off)
• Next to remove the diamond cut finish I staring by using a sander like this http://www.powertoolsuk.co.uk/webcat...GSS280A&ID=438 with the following grades of paper, 240, 400, 1200 (will check on these as i may have stated with a more coarse grade)
• Next out came the polishing kit http://www.frost.co.uk/item_Detail.asp?productID=9010. The mops attach to a drill and uses differing grades of compound.
• I started with the medium polish and once done the wheels were really shiny.
• I used the finish polish compound and it made it them a bit more shiney.
• time taken to get to this point was probably 10-12 hours. To get the rest of the face of the wheels polished will take another 3-4 hours I would estimate, and the additional sanding/polishing (in the slots) will take another 3-4 hours

I havent sealed the finish with a clearcoat but its something I should do for the longterm (need to finish the polishing first) and so the wheels have dulled a bit since last summer.

I'm going to do the angled part of the wheels in the slots as I think this will give it a nicer finish. This will take a bit of time as this part of the wheel isn't as well finished (was hidden under black paint from the factory) but will really add to the overall shine.

I'm going to try and find time to finish the polishing off in the next few weeks and once they're done I'll post some pics.

[Pillow]

Great info!

It seems that Eastwood has similar kits that MrSmythe has pointed out.

MrSmythe I will keep my eyes peeled for updates

... I never realized it would take sooo much time.

Thanks!

[mrsmythe]

... I never realized it would take sooo much time.

the time i gave was fro all four wheels and I've probably been a bit generous with the times I've given.

[Denny]

I polished a set of 6X15 Fuchs for a cal-look bug that I had a few years ago. I stripped the anodized finish with multiple applications with aircraft grade paint stripper. Once the finish was removed I polished the wheels by starting with 100 grit sandpaper on a pad sander and sanding rolls in a die grinder. The die grinder worked very well between the spokes.
After the 100 grit I moved to 150, 220, 360, 400, 600, 1200 and 2000 and then began polishing with different grades of polishing compound using different shapes of wool buffing wheels and bobs.

It took about 8 hours per wheel to finish the job, but it was well worth the time spent.

[Kafer_Mike]

The shop that polished my Fuchs said they use Easy-Off Oven Cleaner to remove clear coat; better than paint stripper...

[Pillow]

I am all about the Easy-Off as well Fast and simple. Just gotta watch it.

[bt1211]

I used Eastwoods clear coat on my polished fuchs knockoffs and after two months they "crazied". Meaning that all four have all of these small "cracks" all over them. The clear coat is not flaking off, it looks like the CC is highlighting all the unseen fishers in the aluminium. Mine were polished by Mag Masters(bad customer service, great job). I degreased them before I applied the CC. Just my experience. I had a friend that powder coated his and DAMN!!! they look great.
Bryan

[Pillow]

I had thunk about just powder coating them some color to go with the Bus... But then you loose the silver/AL look of the wheel.

Maybe VW White or the VW Industrial Grey..?