I want to my rims to be two toned. i don't have the means to powder coat them unless I send them off to a shop but i can paint them (i'm a bit of a do-it-yourselfer, so i'd like to try). the thing is, i only see guys powder coating their rims. can they be painted with a paint gun instead and get the same amount of corrosion protection, longevity, and detail? if so, what kind of paint would be best? and aside from washing all the grease and dirt off the wheel and priming, is there any other prep work needed?

 

my back rim is auto paint..looks great and washes easy,,but the downfall is when it chips... it chips and can keep on chipping....

 

here it is before i painted my bike camo...

 

damn the whole bike looks awesome. the rear rim looks great. i think i'm going to go ahead and paint it then. if it chips over time, i'll just do it again. i'll see what some other people say first though. thanks, havok.

 

yea man it will come out great as long as you clean the **** out of it and prep it right....

 

alil closer

 

oh ****, i totally remember talking to you about that camo paint and how u did it cuz i wanted to learn. man, it's been a slow start but i've started with small ****, like my old scraped up clutch cover, to practice not making the paint run and ****. considering it was my first time, i did a pretty good job at making it look a factory paint job. i still have a couple of questions regarding your stencils but i'll pm ya those.

 

you can get a better looking finish with paint and it is easier to touch up ,it's kind of a bitch to touch up powdercoating ...

i have painted alot of wheels with duplicolor engine enamel and it is strong as hell and it sticks great i never even use primer just a few light coats then a few thick ones you don't even need to sand the wheel just make sure its clean ..

the only time i ever had a problem was painting when its cold and wet outside it can cause the paint to fog because of the humidity[sp] but i fixed that problem by doing it in the sun or using my halogen shop lights to keep every thing warm..

 

excellent. thanks, OMR.

 

Yeah I'm pretty sure powdercoating in two toan would be a bitch.. hit wheelist up though he powdercoats everything and would be a great source for info on that...

 

that painted wheel came out pretty good, im thinkin about polishing lips on a set and paintingthe inside

 

lynch, i've seen some pinstripes for the lip on ebay. check it out. if u like it then u could save urself the trouble of painting the lips.

 

another little known trick if you are going to rattle can it... get a bucket of really hot water and put the spray paint can in there for a while so it will raise the temperature of the paint and the can. Now when you spray, it will look super shiny, cure faster and overall be hard to tell that it was not shot with a professional paint gun!

 

how does raising the temp affect the shine?

 

well i know when i use my heat lamps the paint comes out shiny-er ..lol

 

That's the way to go...if you paint the whole rim they chip real easy when changing out the tires, either way they'll look better than plain old black rims

 

I painted my rims and ran into 2 problems first one was my rear master started leaking this year and it made the paint bubble up right down to the primer and the second was when I painted the rim it was warm out and i left the can in the sun for like an hour, two days later I sprayed it with clear but didnt heat the can and it was like 60 in my garage. As soon as the clear hit the paint it shrunk and made the paint look like ***.

the best paint is duplicolor I clean with brake cleaner, scuff up the rim, prime, paint and clear now I always heat up the cans and use good light. You also need to make sure the rim isnt to cold or the paint will fog up or shrink.

with the clear it looks like you shot it with a gun, it's all in your prep work

 

well it looks like i'll be saving this job for the summertime cuz i dont have heat lamps. thanks, master yoda.

 

great advice on here. i like easy off oven spray to get any existing finishes & grime off the surface to be painted...just preference though.

 

I used that actually 2 weeks ago and it works better than anything else Ive used. Made my life so much easier