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How to polish the lips of your rims

38K views 41 replies 14 participants last post by  85dirty 
#1 ·
So I picked up an old R6 wheel on craigslist to try out wheel polishing. I want to polish my R1 wheels but don't want to mess them up in the process. I used this stuff


Let me warn you know if you use this get a mask or spray it and move away, I thought i was going to choke at the first breath of this stuff. I didn't clean the wheels before, and actually left a piece of ductape that was on the rim and just sprayed this stuff on, it took it all off.

First I taped of the rim along the inner lip(the rough part) and it made for making an easy straight line with the painters tape I used.

Note: I did this with the tire on. The tire was flat and will have to be replaced so I didn't worry about spraying the stripper on the rubber. It eats through it pretty good, so you want to take the rubber off or make sure you don't get any on there. This can sprayed like spray paint so I would of had a really hard time keeping it off the wheel.

This is the rim before.


The can said to wait around 10-20 minutes but when I sprayed it on, this bubbling occured within about 2 minutes. I left it on around 5 minutes.


I wiped it off with rubber gloves on, as this will irritate your skin pretty good so be careful.
This is after the first wipe.



I repeated this process 2-3 times depending on how much came off.

Starting too look better here.



And this is the first side done. It is kinda dark in the picture but it is a lot better looking than when I started.






And the other side before I start.



And finished, I didn't wet sand or polish it, this is just what the stripper did. I will post some more pics when I polish. Mad Bohemian feel free to add on here, since I know you put a little more work into your stuff..







Next are my R1 rims, I am going to not do the middle of the wheel and leave it black on my Rims, it looks pretty good.
 
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#36 ·
It helps for some things but it won't give you that chrome shine. If you want that you have use a buffing wheel. However, if you want a good shine you can always use a polishing kit for your drill. They are about $14 bucks from Harbor Freight. I have a local store here and picked one up a while back. not as good as a polishing wheel but you can do a lot of stuff still on your motorcycle without having to remove parts, which of course you have to do an oil change for things like your generator covers and crankcase covers. They give you about10 different attachments and it gets in the nooks and crannies pretty well. Here is an example for you done with this kit...and its not even done yet. I still have a final stage to go on both the generator cover and crankcase.

BEFORE - keep in mind that is not mud, its flaked off clearcoat on which I used Aircraft Stripper first






After - Before final polish stage



After - Generator Cover still needs final polish coat also




Personally I think it looks fantastic and its not even done yet. I am going to get them finished at the next oil change.
 
#37 ·
I hope you guys don’t mind a troll asking a few questions here, but I’ve been researching polishing aluminum a TON and this is be far the most helpful application specific thread I have found so I’m hoping some of you still post regularly and can answer some questions.

I’m trying to refinish the oxidized polished lip on my car wheels. The polished lip is discolored and the clearcoat is flaking. I do NOT want to to strip the entire wheel because the paint is still good and this is really just my attempt to clean up the wheels good enough to make them presentable for one more summer. Next winter I want to buy new wheels anyway. I don’t want to drop $600 on refinishing these. I might as well buy a set of dif set of wheels in better shape if I’m going to do that.

I’ve thus far been afraid to try aircraft stripper to remove the clearcoat because I was afraid that it would eat the paint too on accident. It looks like the person in the quote below didn’t have that issue though:

The can said to wait around 10-20 minutes but when I sprayed it on, this bubbling occured within about 2 minutes. I left it on around 5 minutes.

I wiped it off with rubber gloves on, as this will irritate your skin pretty good so be careful.
So I want to ask to you, was it just normal painters tape that you used? You didn’t have any issues with the aircraft stripper eating through the tape to get to the paint? I plan on applying it sparingly with a brush, I just want to make sure it won’t eat through the tape too.

Next Point brought up:

One of the best things that will teach you is what speed to use for any given size buff. A cordless drill with a 2 or 3" buff simply cannot achieve the linear speed needed to buff. The smaller the buff the faster it has to spin. That's why you can buff at 3-4krpms on a grinder/buffer, but you need 20-30k on a dremel.
2) At first I was thinking more along the lines of using a polishing wheel kit with an electric drill, but I’m getting the impression from this thread that the drill simply won’t produce enough RPMs? My drill is a 5.0 AMP and it says it only produces 800 RPMs! Considering that I don’t own any air tools, etc. am I better off just using a variable speed dremel for polishing? It’s probably going to be a bit tedious to use such a small wheel or tip, but considering that the lip of the wheel is only about 1” wide it won’t be bas bad as polishing a fat 5 spoke wheel or say a valve cover.

If that doesn't work too well I'll consider buying the electric die grinder mentioned below:

I'm not expert by any means.You can try it with the cordless. But I think you'll find it takes a lot longer, and the buffing media will kinda clump at lower rpms. The heat generated from the buffing helps the media 'flow' and cut better. If it's in your budget, this looks like an inexpensive addition to your toolbox. Keep in mind (if you're anything like me) once you see how you can bring the shine back to something, you're gonna start finding all sorts of things to buff out...lol So it might be a worthwhile investment.

Not sure if this unit has variable speed though. The buffing wheels in the polishing kit from Harbor Freight are rated at max rpms of 2800, the felt bobs are rated at 20,000 rpm so keep that in mind when you're looking at different options.
And lastly, going by the “use what I have already” mantra, do you guys think a finish sander like this would be any help at all when I’m sanding in the beginning stages?:

Since the wheels are aluminum I don’t want to use any kind of Dremel sanding drum in fear of gouging them so I’ll probably hand sand from 220 to 400 or 600 before I use the polishing bits. I was thinking about at least trying one of these things out though and going in a crossing pattern as I sand to avoid getting too many directional scratches.

EDIT: Had to remove all the links and images per posting restrictions (need 15 post count to use links or images :( ) so I appologize that this isn't as clear now.
 
#39 ·
....
Since the wheels are aluminum I don’t want to use any kind of Dremel sanding drum in fear of gouging them so I’ll probably hand sand from 220 to 400 or 600 before I use the polishing bits. I was thinking about at least trying one of these things out though and going in a crossing pattern as I sand to avoid getting too many directional scratches..
Hi Jason. I would NOT recommend using a crossing pattern. That will introduce scratches that will be VERY difficult to work out. Keep in mind also that the finer the grit you finish with during sanding , the easier polishing will be. Don't be afraid to take it up to 1500. When you the sand parts prior to polishing ,wet sanding will help you paper to last longer and not get loaded up with aluminum. When I polished some car rims I actually had a garden hose with a trickle of water running on the wheel while I sanded.
 
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