Hello,

This is my first time ever trying to completely re-paint a rim.

I have a white deep velocity chukker, and the paint is coming off. ( I wil post some pictures of it later on)

What I wanna know is, should I sand down all the white paint?

Then what should I do? I have no idea what steps/brand paint I should be using. I would like the re paint the rim to looks like new ( factory settings)

If you have any guides ( videos ), or from your own experiences on how to do this.


P.S - I would also like to know, what is the rim material of the chukker? Is it steel or aluminum?




Thanks.

Those wheels doubt have regular paint over them. Those things should be powder coated. If you want to re paint them i would not use regular rattle can paint because that's lacquer. Lacquer will take a few months to cure, so after u get it painted for sure it will start cracking or peeling even with your own fingernails.

Unless you want to pay for powder coating, the only good way to paint that is using car paint, carpaint primer and car paint clear coat. And by car paint i mean urethane enamel type of car paint like ppg, or maybe dupont. Do not go to the autoparts store to get duplicolor paint shop paint. It wil work but is not even close to ppg or dupont, not even think how far is from sikkens or HOK for example.

If you find a store the guy will ask you what kind of paint u have to tell him base coat clear coat. The primer u can get away with u-pol spray primer, pick the clearest they have, the primer will give you how light or bright the paint will get. I believe they have white primer but im not that sure, they have a light gray. Second option, tell the guys to mix you primer and put it in a rattle can, for a wheel maybe 1 can will be fine. U can ask them to mix the paint for you in a rattle can also (u can ask them to mix the clear with the paint also,) U-pol has a clear coat that is pretty good and that will work with the urethane paint.

I would Google something like how to paint a car or something because is the same process. As i painter i suck but i know what to do, u learn from your mistakes

Good luck

Forgot this. U have to sand the old paint a little bit. Use a primer sealer to cover all the imperfections, then paint.

Again, do not use duplicolor or any other junk that is not real car paint ok? Urethane is the key word.

Good luck

Thank you that is very helpful. I will look into that.

Just a question.

Base, coat, clear, coat. Is that the steps I should be painting? ( After sanding)

So does that mean I need 3 different kinds of cans? 1 base 1 coat 1 clear?

Sand the rim with a 400 wet sandpaper...

Shoot the primer, wait until is dry... sand the imperfections (if any) with a 600 wet sand paper. Upol primer surfacer will dry in 30 minutes or so.

Shoot the paint... 2 light coats (10 mins between coats)... then a nice wet coat (thick coat), let dry over night. Sand all the imperfections using a 600 or a 1000 wet sand paper. If you want to go with 2000 it is ok also. The paint will look dull... the clear fix that just in case.

Shoot the clear coat. 1 light coat and a light wet coat and let it dry over night again. Sand the imperfections once dried. Done. This is using the upol clear coat ok? If you sand the clear it will get dull... makes sense anyways. Once all of smooth u can polish using a paint polisher compound. This thing is for paint not for plastic or metal (havent tried it in metal anyways) The bottle costs maybe 15 bucks. SO a lot of hand polishing and the clear will get shine again. U can take scratches in your car this way also.

If you use urethane clear thats is a mix of 3 things (clear, hardener and reducer)probably u have to clear after a few hours or the basecoat (color) and the clear will dry at different speeds and then will be a problem and you'll need to take all out and paint again until you get it right. If i was you I would get the upol. Because u can shoot it next day if you have to do some sanding. If the paint job was shoot Right u can clear after like 15 to 20 minutes w/o any problems.

U need 3 things, primer, the color paint (in the store the guy will tell you base coat - clear coat, u say yes) and the clear coat. The 3 paints needs to be equal or have the same components or the paint job will be a disaster. I have seen because it happened to me, that the paint was melting after 30 minutes. The base paint was not cured and what i thought was an acrylic water based paint it was a lacquer, and this one started melting the base coat. Had to repaint the whole fork. Been teaching myself how to paint and i still can't get it right in the practice. Some people has the talent.. i dont.

Many tricks to tell... sadly as i said before i suck as a painter hehehe

Thanks that is really helpful. Now at least I have an idea of what I should be shooting for.

Thanks alot man.

modern car paint is acrylic urethane/water borne not emeral btw.

depends on the state you are in, you might run into water borne paint from the jobber, it will take more than 2 coats to get
a decent coverage on lighter shades. tacky coat is the key to not getting runs, almost a must for water borne paint viscosity.

with the new water borne paint, you are asking for trouble not to use a sealer, i been using it for a long time just for insurance.
I usually never use high build unless i am super lazy, paint job sticks better with metal, PERIOD. I prefer getting the prep done
right, polyester high build do not have the chip resistance and flexible of a thin epoxy primer/sealer. when you see a bumper
with tons of rock chip the painter usually use a high build on it, cheap and fast. I painted my own car with epoxy primer, i drive around
75-80 miles everyday and i have around 2 rock chips for a three years old paint job. you get a crack or chip easy when the primer
doesn't flex. it cost more and takes more prep but it will always pays for itself if you want a high quality finish.

i never cut my CC with reducer, usually a high speed/fast hardener works best for smaller parts.

<--shoots HOK, sherwin, PPG and chroma mainly.


edit: WB paint requires a new WB HVLP guns as well, if you are doing large panel works you even need to set up a heat rack(not need for bike part in this case).

THanks

In his original post, he said that the original paint is coming off. It's obviously lost its bond to the aluminium rim. Why would you want add perfectly good paint on top of paint that is already coming off? The new paint will just come off on the back of the original stuff.

He needs to use a chemical-stripper to remove all traces of the original paint. Aircraft stripper works well. Then clean off the surfaces very well and sand with 400-grit wet. Now, the most important part is the primer, and the wrong primer was used originally, which is why the paint is coming off. You need to use a zinc chromate etching primer on the bare aluminium. Look that up to see why. This isn't a filler/sanding primer that most people are used to. It's sole purpose is to chemically etch the aluminum and provide an adhesion-friendly surface for the next layer of paint. In this case, the next layer should be the regular filler/sanding primer you're used. to.

Sand that and apply your favourite flavour of auto-paint. Not rattle-can stuff, but real 2-part auto paints that they mix in the back and bring out in cans along with an activator and reducer. There is a HUGE difference in the quality of even the bottom-of-the-line auto-paint versus the most costly rattle-can paint. Not to mention the auto-paint is cheaper for the volume and area covered.

Just to clarify, if I screw up painting and stuff. Is there any chance I am able to sand off the paint/etc. and try again? lol.. =S

Use chemical paint-stripper. It won't remove any metal the 1st time or the 2nd time if you mess up. Sanding will always remove metal from the rim. They are thin enough as it is and you're just shortening their useful life by removing metal pre-maturely.

Ohh.. well then.

Is there another way to repaint to wheel without stripping the original paint? Like just adding another coat of paint over the original? ( Add more weight is not really a matter to me )

Since it's a Velocity rim, what does Velocity say about it? I'd think that factory paint on a rim should be somewhat durable- if it's peeling off, maybe it's a manufacturing defect. Better than investing a couple hundred dollars in specialized spray gear.

Well, u have to sand anyways to make the surface to look good or the paint job it will look like WRAP! Somebody mentioned to strip all the paint off, you can do that also. The question is if the paint is falling off or you have some chips in the paint due to accidents or pebbles? Big difference between both of the situations. If the paint is peeling off u are better stripping the whole paint off, sand anyways.. find a primer for aluminum surfaces, have no idea if upol does it, dont remember it does. Paint and clear.

Yes if you screw up u can take the paint off with paint remover. Or if it doesnt look as bad u can sand imperfections and paint over it (retouch).

Well, the paint chips are due to mostly being smash around alot. Theres a 2inch chip on the side of the rim.

So...

1st- sand
2nd- clean it off
3rd- add primer ( how many coats )
4th - add paint ( how many coats)
5th- add clear ( how many coats)

What are you trying to accomplish?

If you want to mimic the factory finish you are going to have to completely disassemble the wheel, strip all of the old finish off of the rim, sand, use an etching primer for aluminum, sand again, prime again and paint. Your finished product will never be any better than your surface preperation so, if you want a factory-looking finish, don't even think of skimping on that step.

Im not really looking for factory finish. Just something that doesn't look like crap. Im trying to sell it, but it has many paint chips. I just wanna make it have fresh good-looking paint so someone would buy it.

Agree with retro...

Without doing all the steps Retro outlined, it WILL look like crap. Even if painstakingly wrap tape around every single spoke-nipple to mask it off, there will still be some paint that shows up due to leakage from the holes. Then as soon as you true the wheel, the paint around the holes will crack and chip. There's a reason most rims aren't painted from the factor to begin with..

Well, I was thinking of just completely strip the paint and leave it without paint. So it can match my rear sliver deep v.

If I wanted to just strip all the white paint and leave it blank. What do I need to keep it from being scatch and looking like crap?

What do you prefer I do? re paint or strip?

I will probably just tape the spoke/nibbles ---WILL NOT DISASSEMBLE BECAUSE IT TAKES TOO MUCH TIME AND I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DO SO. =S

Unfortunately, the silver deep-V rims are most likely anodized. Painted rims are not. When you remove the paint, either through sanding or chemical-stripping, you'll end up with a bare aluminium surface that will end up blotchy and dull because it will oxidize at different rates. There's really no easy solution here. It's like saying, "I want a Ferrari Enzo, and I want to pay $100 for it!" You can discuss all the ways you can try to negotiate and pay $100. You can try it 20 different ways, but in the end, it's still not gonna happen.

The next option is to use to high built pimer, put that only in the bad parts and randomly and just use another color and paint dots (or any other shape u want) randomly around the rim. Less chances to screw up in my opinion and u dont have to repaint the whole thing.

Any idea will work anyways if you dont want to repaint the whole thing. Just a stupid idea that actually could work

Honest use damage usually looks better than anything you can do to hide it. Touch ups, unless perfectly done, scream "LOOK OVER HERE!"

Use Duracoat from Laur Custom Weaponry. It's a firearm finish and comes in a bazillion colors and I regularly spray it out of a cheap $20 airbrush. If you don't bake it in an oven it will take two weeks to completely cure but you can handle it within 24 hours. In fact, I've sprayed a gun before and shot it the next day with zero ill-effects. I've used it on several firearms and plan to soon use it on my bike. Sand down to bare metal if you can but in my experience just a decent sanding will suffice. It's super tough and scratch resistant.