I managed to polish just one of my wheels today. I learned the hardway, that if the compound are hard and cold, they don't work well and you're gonna have to re-do the whole procedure. I'd never used this method before so I had no idea the compound was too hard until the white rouge had been sitting in the sun, making it easy to apply. I went back to the Emory, and sure enough it went on real easy.....but it took all day.

Since last year I used the sandpaper method. 300-600-800-1000-1200 grit....then polish, I had to sand back down to the 400 grit before the Emory was applied. I think I read that high grit will glaze the metal.....anyway.....after all that, they look GREAT. Of course, I'll have to fine tune my technique. They look real good, MUCH better than the sandpaper method, but no where near what some of you polishing guys are doing..... Oh, well, maybe by the fourth one, I'll have it down!

Pics:

 

Please post questions comment, or tips.....

....oh and there are some water marks in that close-up...I washed the whole thing beofre starting, and when I stood up the wheel, some drops got on the wheel. Came right off when I waxed the wheel.

 

Holy WOW
LOOKING GOOD

 

The hardest part of it all is starting on the 2nd wheel. I havent even made it there yet, and I'm not doing anywhere near as much polishing. Heres my one completed formula wheel:

 

Thank the lord I only have to polish the lip on my crosslaces....

 

Looking real good! Come do mine when your done Chris. lol.

 

looks great you wanna come do my rims ? lol j/k would take forever

 

Those look awsome! :rockon:

Well I guess everyone is jumping on the wagon butttt mine are all done and on the car!!! I just got the second half of them on the car this week so I no longer have one side polished and one side cleared.. but it took me like a month... I'll post pics when I get back to real internet connection land

 

lol looks like everyones doin the one polished wheel thing now lol. but that looks good, i think im goin to go back and do my one i did with the emery compound and then the tri compound and then the mothers polish. hopefully mine will come out good

 

Wow that looks good. What do you use to apply the compound? I'm going to be getting my rims sand blasted and then have the accents powder coated or maybe i'll paint them. I'd like to polish them.

 

Looks like you did a really great job. I gotta get workin on mine

 

Right or wrong, here's what I used:

Sand to 400 grit. I have very faint sanding lines on mine, so tomorrow, I may go to 600, but the general consensus seems to be 400. I'll let you know.....

I then used the Emory....Tripoli.....and then 2 different degrees of Jewelers rouge, for a total of four different compounds. I used 4" inch buffing pads/wheels, one for each compound. I also used a air grinder, not a electric drill. My right arm is still a little numb, I can only imagine a heavy electric drill...UGH!


....and then carnuba wax to finish up.

 

I didn't have to do any sanding on mine,just emory then tripoli and then white rouge. I then went over them with NevrDull for the final clean up. You'll see mine at Auto Fair Chris.

 

So, you're gonna come polish my snowflakes now for using my air compressor, right?

Looks great, bud! :hail:

 

That wheel looks sweet man, NICE!!!

 

Did you wetsand with 400 or just drysand? Wetsanding might take care of the fine sanding marks.

 

Wetsand.

This morning I finished the other 3. All came out the same. GREAT, but not quite perfect. I went up to the 600 grit too. The lines look like very faint scratches, and you couldn't see 'em unless you were looking for them, but I see them... and I'm picky about stuff like that! But at the same time, I'm not doing them again!!! Until next year anyway...

I also found out that Jewelers rouge is NOT white rouge. The white rouge didn't seem to work as well for me....but again no one else seems to have trouble. I wonder if my sanding so high a grit LAST year glazed over the aluminum, and I just didn't quite sand down enough this time......

either way, it was worth it, and when all is said and done, they do look pretty darn good!!!

 

Howdy there buddy!.....wheels looking great to me!

You gonna go to TGR/fbodymotorsports grand opening on 5/1? I'll be down there...

 

Yeah, I was reading some of my Eastwood stuff and I found out that white rouge is not the same as jeweler's rouge. I was gonna tell you but I forgot and you had already started anyway

Did you sand them by hand or did you use a dremel or air tools?

 

The sanding was all done by hand. When I used the "sanding method" last year, I found that it wasn't toooo bad sanding by hand. Especially with all the nooks and crannies on that wheel, I didn't want to risk sandpaper and power tools.

The compound was all done with air tools. If I do this again next year, I'm gonna start COMPLETELY over and go back down to a super low grit and work up to 400. I'm also gonna get extra wheels. I've noticed that once a wheel is dirty, it's a pain to get the compound off of the rim/car wheel that you're polishing.


I love to actually watch some the "experts" polish.

 

I had the same problem with sand pitting.. tho I think its probably from using the higher grit of sandpaper cause you would have to sand the crap out of it to do anything with 400 wet I went overboard with the emery on my second two tho and polished hard with the drill on top speed and I didn't notice nearly as much of this on these two wheels so who knows?

 

I'm gonna do the same thing. I think that looks sweet dude, nice work

 

do u have to sand. i got some scratches on some wheels and i would like to know how to get them out. sorry for stealin ur thread.

 

WARD,
I sent you a PM about this. You're email address didn't work.

I have the same wheels that I’m trying to refinish and I was wondering how you did yours? Did you strip all the paint and clearcoat off? If so did you have trouble getting off the silver paint inside the slots? I sure am.

Any info would be a great help.

 

Nice work, but the real question is this- is your arm tired from polishing or jerking after you finished and saw how they looked??? Just messin with you bud, they look great!

 

PAformula you might want to consider having the rims sand blasted. I started stripping my iroc rims a while ago and it was just taking to long for me so i decided to just have them sand blasted. I called a few places up and it seems it's about $20 a wheel. Worth it for how long it was taking using aircraft stripper.