i still have fine scratches althought, how long did you guys spend on ur centercaps? to polish them?

 

nice, i polished mine too, as soon as i got my wheels i polished the caps, i think they look alot better than the dull ones with the writing, mine were in about perfect shape, so it only too me maybe a couple hours total, i used acetone to get the clear off them and then used an air grinder with the buffing pad on it with WENOL to get mine done, i would really recommend WENOL that stuff works awesome, the best stuff i have used yet, heres a pic of what mine look like on the car

 

those look great, what procedure did u use like what grit sand paper and such?

 

Wow JC those look good.

I need some new rims...

 

Mine took about 45 minutes to an hour a piece. I used paint stripper
to get rid of the clear then wet sanded with 220,320,400,
600, 800, 1000, 1500, and finally 2000. After the sanding was
done I hand polished with Mothers Aluminum and Mag Polish. I
used a super soft terry cloth applicator pad then buffed using
a flannel polishing cloth.

Here is a picture of the results:

 

I was wondering how polishing the actual wheels is going? Here
is a picture of one of the wheels after it was finished. I have
some pics of them on my car but have to get them developed, but
I will be posting them this weekend .

 

Wow i do buffing myself and that is f**king awesome!
Honestly i would recommend cleraing those. I dealt with bikes for years and many custom builders will clear them after they polish them.
Clearing:
Advantages-Will look sweet
-easy to clean
-wont pit
Disadvantages-it will turn yellow and fade over time(but you can just repolish it anyway)

But something that looks like that needs to be cleared! It will last longer looking like that then just repolishing every week

 

SpeedJunkie - how would I go about clearing my rims? Are there
any special products that will allow the clear to bind better to a
highly polished surface? My uncle has a booth and spray gun
(that is where I painted my inserts and they are clearcoated), but
he said the clear would most likely not stick to the polished areas.
I would like to have them clear coated, because I don't want
them to pit, but I also don't want the clear to just peel and haze
in about a month.

 

whoops I made a mistake. See when i talk about clearing a wheel i mean it in bike terms and when we say clear its actually powdercoating.I'm sorry for saying it like that. It is actually powdercoating is what you want to do. Your right I don't belive clear would stick to polished aluminum. Powdercoating is very hard, durable, and looks fantastic. Another disadvantage I forgot to add is that once it is cleared"powdercoated" you can't make it any better than when it was cleared. But since those wheels look as good as it really could get i would powdercoat them. Keep "coloring" and not"cutting" the aluminum.

 

looks great!!

 

nazz how many coats of polish are on the rim and caps?

 

billdawg23 - I went over the wheels and caps twice with polish
making sure to really get ever spot each time.

 

dry sanding vs wet sanding whats the big difference?? nazz what kind of paper u use on the rims?

 

I used 3M wet/dry sand paper, I think I posted all of the grits I
went through. I think the only difference with wet sanding is that
by keeping the surface you're sanding wet it helps to draw the
impurities and filings away from the surface where they can cause
damage.

 

No before\after shots?

K here is a before and after shot.

 

nazz how many hours did it take you to do the rims a piece? not the centercaps.... since you already told me, did you use 100 grit on the rims to get the machining grooves off or what?

 

Those rims are all chrome!! Stop trying to say you guys polished them.

 

nazz did you do your buffing in circles how about sanding back and forth? i want mine to look like yours. they look superior. how much pressure did you use when sanding?

 

Nice.

 

Burnouts4ever - It took me about 12-15 hours per rim. That includes
the stripping, sanding, masking for paint, painting, and polishing.
I used 220 grit to remove the machining grooves. I felt that 100
grit would be too coarse and the scratches left would be hard
to remove completely. I sanded along the spokes then across and
repeated this until the scratches from the previous grit were no
longer visible. I also used a sanding block for the flat areas and
used the palm of my hand on curved surfaces like the lip. When
I polished I went back and forth, the same way I sanded. I am not
really sure how much pressure I used. Hope this helps and
good luck .