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| Media blast lace wheels for repaint? (Page 1/1) |
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imacflier
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AUG 18, 02:09 PM
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Wow, been days since I asked a question!
So, for today: anybody out there use media blasting to strip lace wheels in preparation for a repaint? Good result, bad result, issues, precautions?
Please tell me what you know or have experienced!
TIA,
Larry
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Chris Eddy
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AUG 18, 02:17 PM
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I did my snowflake wheels, I had them blasted for me professionally and they used soda, not grit.
I rattle canned them, they came out OK, but not great.
Much better than the old ones that the kid had "blacked out".
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fierosound
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AUG 18, 02:26 PM
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pmbrunelle
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AUG 18, 08:13 PM
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I re-did the aluminium wheels on my Ford Ranger daily driver.
Except for the polished lip, wheels are wheels, so things wouldn't be much different for Fiero wheels.
I more or less followed these steps:
1. Wash the wheels (Simple Green / hot water).
2. Remove the dings, starting with a file / Dremel, then working up the sandpaper grits until 400 or so.
3. Mask "critical areas" that you don't want blasted. I didn't want to disturb the lug nut seats, so I covered them with electrical tape. I think the lips of a polished wheel should be masked as well.
4. Use 30-60 grit crushed glass to blast the wheels. Clean off the blasting media.
5. Degrease with solvent. Paint with yellow zinc chromate primer. Do not paint the hub surface, nor the lug nut seating areas.
6. Paint with single stage silver metallic. I used leftover Nason we had from another wheel project.
7. Wait a week for the paint to harden, then mount the valves and tires with soap, trying not to scratch the paint.
8. Balance the wheels using stick-on weights. Clip-ons will scratch the paint, ruining the paint job.
I was mostly happy with how things turned out, but I had some minor fish-eye-like dots in the topcoat. OK for my daily beater. I think I went too heavy with the coats of paint, whereas thin dust coats would have worked better to tie the topcoat to the primer.
The Fiero lace wheels have the benefit of small continuous painted surfaces, so I think that would help conceal any paint defects.
To sand and polish the lip, I would probably insert that as step 2.5 into the above sequence.
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