suggestions on painting rims?

[coletrain]

Hey, I'm thinking about painting my stock alloy rims. My car is Arcadia green.

Does anyone have any good suggestions on brands, technique's, and good colors of paint? I know alot about painting, but is painting rims any different? I want the color to last for a while without chipping, so is their a brand you guys recomend for rims?

A few color idea's I was tossing around: darker silvers, or bronze, dark bronze, gun metal?

[kmart64]

i think a bronze by duplicolor would look good. What rims do u have???

[coletrain]

here's the rims

[MikeW]

agh..i want those rims..either those or the 6/7 spokes off the 5th gens....i tossed up the idea of painting my steelies black and leaving the outer lips silver but....yeah...
I would think if you taped off the outer rim they might look nice black/silver..bronze or gunmetal might look too..your call bro

[AccordWarrior]

Honestly, I think those rims look best left polished.

If you were going to paint them, check out pictures of fliplyricst1's car before he got his new wheels, if he still has pics of them. He had gunmetal rims like yours, no centercaps and lots of clear coat.

[maroonaccord2.2]

Ya, if anything the gunmetal finish looks good. I prefer the natural machine finish myself.....

[aznkid.com]

agh..i want those rims..

too bad you don't live near me.. mine are for sale :P

[King James]

too bad you don't live near me.. mine are for sale :P

were for sale ...but man yer pm box is full...sorry for the ot

[coletrain]

would you guys use a regular automotive clear coat?

[LinX]

NOOOO dont paint 'em! JK, check out some painted rims like stated above before you decide to go through with it. Those rims are very nice just the way they are IMO.

[ant96gle]

As far as technique goes...

Get some aircraft paint stripper and rub the wheels down with it so the oem clear coat and other garbage comes off and its plain aluminum.

Sand them down... and of course then paint them. Dont forget a nice clearcoat to protect them from chips

[DA92CB7]

If you want your wheels to be almost bullet proof paint wise your best bet is to get them powder coated. But lots of clear should also work just not as good as a nice clean powder coat.

[coletrain]

good tips guys, thanks!!

[TheNextAZN]

i painted my wheels graphite metal .. i used dupli-color wheel paint .. they also made a clear coat for wheels as well. here's a pic of mine

how ever i only painted mine because 2 of my wheels had really big scratches from curbs. But after i painted mine, i was really happy..
what i did was sand paper the wheels down with heavy grit paper to remove all the clear coat that is already on the wheels, then lowered teh sand paper grit to smooth it out. The hard part was masking it off so the tires would not get painted .. i used damp towels because tape won't stick the the rubber. I just did like 3 layers of light coats of the color. then i clear coated .. use alot of clear coat to make it shine, which i didn't do. I'm actually going to repaint my wheels soon.. i'm going to experiement a mix color of graphite black and silver mix to get a little more sparkle out of it, and put alot.. and i mean alot.. i'm thinking almose 1 whole can per wheel to get the really wet and shiny look.

[coletrain]

looks nice.

I'm probably going with the Dupli-Color bronze. I'll post picks soon.