painting LGT wheels

[Durs845]

whats the best way to go about painting aluminum wheels if i decide not to pay for powdercoating?i have a sand blaster , paint gun , and a compressor.so i kinda was figuring i could dismount the tires , sand blast the wheels , wipe off all the sand / residue , then spray.
do you think i would have to prime the wheels before painting?
what would be the best kind of paint to use?

[MoclovFlop]

Sand blasting would be perfect to remove the factory clear, i would use primer or at least an adhesion promoter. As far as paint is concerned, do a search on here and NASIOC, when i looked around it seemed most people used regular spray paint (i.e. krylon, dupli-color, walmart...etc) But since you have a gun...i wouldn't know, maybe just get an acrylic based color mixed the way you like it and go to town. You're probably going to need about 30-40 sq.ft. worth of paint depending on how many coats you end up doing per wheel. I used less than one can of primer, 4 cans of walmart brand gold paint and 1.5 cans of Dupli-color high performance wheel clear, and It turned out damn nice I think.

looks darker/more bronzein the pics than it really is but you get the idea...

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2006/10/P8160066-1.jpg

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2006/10/P8160014-1.jpg

[STZYGT]

Also what my bud moclov forgot to tell you is that the paint may come out cromey gold from the can, what i did is dust the rim from far off so it dulled the finish as much as possible, then clean coat em. It will instantly smooth out and the color will deepen. I was scared for a while until i saw what the clear coat did. Now they look like 2.5 rs rims from factory. Mine are little lighter then moclovs and his are more of a sti bronze color but still look like money baby

[MoclovFlop]

Haha, yea what he said, SHOW SOME PICS STEEZY!!!

[2.5GT]

A local paint shop wants $300 for all 4 of my wheels to be poweder coated. But i just painted mine with a rattle can. Universal Gold it was called at Advance.

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/

[Jonathan]

VHT makes a polyurethane "wheel paint" that is specifically designed to be "chip resistant" and is indended for aluminum and steel wheels :

"SP-182" Gold

So far all I have painted are some practice plastic centre caps for my wheels.
Maybe a shade too much orange peel, although a nice shade of gold that should prove to be very durable.

If you do go the regular Duplicolour or krylon route, I would recomend doing some clear coat as well to protect the paint.


EDIT: Duplicolour also does a specific brand of "wheel paint", too. I am not sure how Duplicolour paints compare to VHT brand paint, though.

[Plays_with_Toys]

I used the duplicolor wheel paint on a set of truck wheels... The pics are on my computer at school, so I can't upload them, but it came out VERY nice. They looked brand spanking new. A very even finish and very durable. I used their clear coat on my grill, and it hasn't held up. I am not sure why. But the front end gets blasted around here with road salt and dust.