Coloring Wheels
 

Hey guys! This is my first post on Bike Forums, so please tell me if there is anything wrong. Thanks!!

So I want to color my wheel. The way I was told, was to take off the tire, tube, and rim tape. Then put the wheel back onto the bike. To not get paint on unwanted areas, use masking tape to cover them. Spin the wheel while spraying to get an even coat. I'am not going to go into detail with the finishing coat and stuff like that.

Questions: Can I spray paint my spokes? Can I spray paint the hubs? Do you have a different way of coloring wheels? If so, please tell.

Thanks again!!

If you want to paint everything, make some kind of a stand out of some scrap wood, then spray the spinning wheel as you plan. Working with scrap saves you having to mask, and ensures that you don't accidentally spray something you care about.

You can also use some coat hanger wire and do it with the wheel hanging from something, but to do so, you'll need to support both ends of the axle.

The only real issue (discounting cosmetics) is what to do about the rim's braking surface (if you have rim brakes). You can mask it or try to remove the paint after, or live with poor braking and some ugliness until the brake shoes finally wear through down to the rim.

If you paint your spokes, you will need to mask off the nipples or risk seizing them with the paint and rendering them un-adjustable; no wheel truing after that.

There's always that risk, but I've seen many of these rattle can painted wheels and the wheels are still serviceable, except that the spoke wrench flakes the paint off.

As a contractor friend once told me "ANYTHING can be painted" it's just a matter of how much effort you want to put in to get the result you want.

An easy way to "mask" the spokes and nipples is to cut plastic drinking straws lengthwise and wrap them around the spokes before you spray. Little tedious but it works.

What is the desired effect here? Is this just for fun and the end result doesn't really matter or are you trying for something that's going to impress people? If the former, wash the wheel to remove any traces of oil on the parts, let it dry really well (use a hair dryer if impatient) and go to town with some spray paint. As FB suggested, there's not much that you'll get paint on that will really matter. It will quickly be removed by your brake pads or chain, in the case of the cassette/freewheel.

Now, if you want to impress people, the only way you are going to do a satisfactory job is to disassemble the entire wheel, carefully prepare the various metal surfaces, carefully mask the brake track, and use something better than Krylon. Ideally, you'd be powder coating or anodizing the aluminum bits (depends on the look you want) and eletrocoating or PVD'ing the spokes (assuming you want something other than black). This will cost you a bunch of time and money of course, but will yield very nice results that you can be proud of.

If you just want color,clean,mask and spray away.......If you want them to look good and last,spraying them is the easy part.Aluminum/stainless need to be prepped well or the paint won't stick well.

Hey guys. Thanks for the info. Do you think it would just be easier (not cheaper) to order a wheel online? If so, do you know of any websites?

It depends a bit on how specific your request is - but for a good result, ordering will definitely be easier.
Well, you might have to spend some time looking, but it'd be "clean" time behind the keyboard as opposed to "messy" time spent prepping the bike parts.

But here's the thing:
- while there's a reasonable variety of colours available for pretty much all the components of a wheel, wheels as a rule aren't sorted by colour. You'll have to enter your spec (size, intended usage etc) and start the chase from there.
- and while matching rims to hubs is fairly common, far fewer will be doing matching nipples - particularly for other colours than "silver" or black.
- and matching spokes - for other colours than "silver" or black - is decidely rare.

So if you want a complete match(hubs, spokes, nipples, rims), you'll probably have to get a custom build.
Not a problem as such, but these guys usually have a shortlist of parts that they prefer to use. And that list is unlikely to coincide with all your specific requests - particularly the coloured spokes.

I'll let others chime in there, who might have something more local to suggest. Depending on your degree of dedication, start with looking at the regular webshops that offers custom wheels. That ought to get you matching rims and hubs, and probably your choice of either black or "silver" spokes and nipples.
If you want more, start talking to wheel builders.

This is pretty much guaranteed to look crap IMO - if not straight way, then definitely after a while as the paint flakes off.

To do it properly, all surfaces need to be keyed; the SS or galvanising of/on the spokes would require an etch primer, and I think the anodising on hubs and rim would need to be sanded or etched off before etch priming.

And of course the wheels would need to be disassembled. So not too feasible.

If you really have your heart set on a certain colour, your best bet is to order the parts in whatever colours you want after figuring out what length spokes you need for the hubs and rims, figure out how to lace them up (put a drop of oil on the spoke threads), and take them to a shop for tensioning and truing.