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Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 7 2012, 03:50 PM

So I'm doing the RSR treatment to my straight but cosmetically challenged Fuchs.

First I stripped the anodising from one wheel using a caustic soda (also known as lye or Sodium hydroxide) solution, it takes off the anodizing like a champ, but hardly touches the old paint. Bottom left rim first pic has been in the caustic soda . So it was off to the hardware store for some stripper.

The stripper worked, but I had to take off the paint leftovers with the bead blaster (last pic).
They are going back into the caustic soda solution again tonight to get rid of the rest of the anodizing.

I love the finish, it has me debating whether to leave them like this or to paint the usual black background.


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Posted by: JRust Aug 7 2012, 04:45 PM

I like the black centers with the polished lips. Wasn't a huge fan of the RSR look. Then I bought a set of the 17" Rota's Fuchs replica's. They look sweet in the RSR finish so my mind has been changed. I am still a fan of the Black centers with Polished lips on the right car. I think you can't really go wrong either way. I am not a huge fan of straight polished fuchs though

Posted by: carr914 Aug 7 2012, 05:12 PM

I used to be a Fan of Polished Paddles, but the RSR look is so much cooler without the Bling Factor

Posted by: Randal Aug 7 2012, 06:08 PM

+ 1 on the stripped look.

I was screwing around with my Gotti's and bead blasted the aluminum barrel to get some (remaining) chrome off. Actually looks OK, especially for a race car.

But not suggesting you bead blast your Fuchs!

Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 7 2012, 06:12 PM

Too late

One out of the tank and drying, another in the tank.
Watching the alunimum slowly bubble.

Posted by: steuspeed Aug 7 2012, 06:33 PM

I just got these Fuch wheels today. What are you using for a tank and where did you buy the Lye Crystals? I already stripped the paint off the the two black wheels with Jasco.


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Posted by: mepstein Aug 7 2012, 06:53 PM

I used a heavy duty scotch brite pad on mine. Looks like brushed stainless. Cost less than $5 and I can always polish or paint in the future. Future touch up should be easy. Have to dig up a pic.


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Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 7 2012, 07:22 PM

My "tank" is a plastic lid from a water softener salt tank I found that fits a 15" rim perfectly.

Be aware that lye (caustic soda or Sodium hydroxide) will strip all anodizing off of your rim, so don't do this unless you want the anodizing removed! You will have to paint or re-anodize your rims.

Lye Crystals is a common cleaner you can get from most hardware stores and is the main ingediant in oven and toilet bowl cleaner.

Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 7 2012, 07:58 PM

I'm using a very weak solution, 4 heaping teaspoons to about 2 gallons (10L) of water.
Takes about 30-40 minutes to strip the anodizing. I could add more and speed up the process but this is working for me.

BTW if you did forget about your rim, say overnight, you most likely would find a puddle of goo the next morning. Even this weak you can see the aluminium coming off.

This stuff is caustic so use proper safety gear and have a good supply of water on hand.
Of course I have my safety flip-flops and shorts on


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Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 7 2012, 08:01 PM

Here you can see the smut rising (that's aluminium) and a bit of bubbling action.


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Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 7 2012, 08:05 PM

This is my stir stick/test strip, a scrap piece of stair bullnose.
You can see the anodizing is gone.


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Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 7 2012, 08:15 PM

Fuchs rims are not just aluminium they are an alloy and must have copper in them, so when you do this they come out stained darker than normal. A few minutes with a scotchbrite pad will fix this.
Hard to see, but I did a quickie scotchbrite job on the bottom petal.


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Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 7 2012, 08:47 PM

This picture the rim on the right you can see how dirty it looks straight out of the solution. The one on the left was just as bad, I only spent about 5 minutes with a scothbrite pad under running water scrubbing it.

At this point you could polish it if you want or bead blast it for the RSR frosted finish.
For the frosted you want very fine bead or since I'm a CSOB I have old beads that I'll be using.


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Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 7 2012, 10:28 PM

Just a few notes, I changed my solution after 2 rims. Since this is such a weak solution I saw no issue just dumping it on the grass, it wont hurt it, just dilute it with lots of water. I use more than this when I clean out the chicken shed, but you might want to keep pets away from your work area till it dries.


steuspeed PM'ed me about this and I thought I'd share my opinion with everyone.

I have a cracked 4-bolt Fuchs here so I scratched the finish to check it out. IMO the gray part of this rim is just the raw unpolished forging, in fact I can clearly see grinder marks. It's just clear anodized.
You would have to clean it before anodizing it and thus run the risk of polishing it too much, if you clean it with a soft cloth you may be OK. You could replicate this finish to a certain extent by bead blasting with a very fine grit.
This finish on the Fuchs are factory grade, they are known to be far from perfect. I know exactly how they polished the petals, you just have to look at it. They spun the rim and hit it with a polisher. Most likely you will end up with better finish than the factory which some CW's might not like.

You must protect the finish when done by paint, clear coat or anodizing, some peeps will even coat it lightly with vaseline (yuck). The issue with clear coat is it will end up slightly darker than stock.
Anodizing would be my choice, it's what the factory did.


That's it for now, I'll update this thread when I finish them. Unfortunately due to other commitments I won't be able to get back to these for a couple of weeks.
Below is a pic of the now raw aluminium rims, cleaned and ready for finishing.

Cheers


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Posted by: bulitt Aug 8 2012, 05:26 AM

They look great! Your process works really well and would make it so much easier to polish the entire face.

Posted by: mepstein Aug 8 2012, 07:02 AM

Easy off oven cleaner (name brand bottle) also works well.

Posted by: kg6dxn Aug 8 2012, 07:15 AM

Used it many time to remove anodizing... Removes color too...

Posted by: Randal Aug 8 2012, 08:21 AM

Nice!

Posted by: Randal Aug 8 2012, 08:25 AM

Looking good so far.

So have you decided to polish and paint them or scotchbrite them or what?

Posted by: scotty b Aug 8 2012, 09:33 AM

Marks wheels look really good. good enough I think I'm going to copy him on my 911 when/if the time comes I'll try to get a better shot of them sometime today with the tires mounted

Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 8 2012, 10:05 AM

Any oven or toilet bowl cleaner with the active ingredient Sodium Hydroxide (lye, caustic soda, same thing) would do the job. I've done the oven cleaner trick before, but this is IMO superior as you can pull it out at any time to check the progress, if not done just stick it back in. In fact if you pull it from the tank and let it sit you can see the anodizing dissolving. Coloured anodizing is just a dye in the anodizing solution, so yes it will strip the colour anodizing as well.

This jug of lye crystals (6.6 lbs) cost $15 and I'm guessing it would do at least 100+ rims at pennies per rim. You can also use it to clean oil stains on concrete, greasy sinks, kennels, toilet bowls, ovens, etc.



I've done this as well, it's a lot of elbow grease and I'd worry about over sanding areas. Also if you plan to re-anodize and any old anodizing is left over it could leave splotchy areas.

Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 8 2012, 10:24 AM

The original plan is to bead blast it for the RSR frosted finish, polish the lip, anodize it and paint the backgound black.
With them stripped I'm now on the fence They are just so pretty
I have a couple of weeks to think about it. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Posted by: zymurgist Aug 8 2012, 11:01 AM

I think this should be a classic thread. So many Fuchs wheels are now showing their age, and here you are with cool pictures of how to strip them down.

Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 8 2012, 12:11 PM

Thanks, I wish I could finish these right now, I'll see what I can do, but I'm on a mission to get a couple of paying jobs done. In fact I'll have to put them away because they're a major distraction.

Posted by: mepstein Aug 8 2012, 12:21 PM

I agree with you, remove the anodizing first. My wheels had a lot of scratches and different finishes from front and back so the scotch brite finish blended everything together. I got the wheels cheap enough that they were good for experimenting. I didn't expect to get the thumbs up from Scotty but I think the finish looks good. It was a couple dollars for scotch brite and an hour of scrubbing vs $$$ getting refinished. I don't think the pads will remove much metal.

Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 10 2016, 11:40 AM

Can't believe it's been 4 years

But I have new motivation to get my car back on the road so I had to finish these off.
I was going to clear anodize the rims but I have to much on the go to make the tank.
So I did the whole face in in Rustoleum brilliant silver metallic and then the relief in satin black, the lips I polished.

I used electrical tape to do the edges, works good but leaves a residue that you have to carefully clean off.


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Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 10 2016, 11:45 AM

I did it all by eye, not 100% perfect, but they look damn fine to me

Now I'm debating if I should clear coat the whole face.




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Posted by: mb911 Aug 10 2016, 11:55 AM

Those look great.

Posted by: VWTortuga336 Aug 10 2016, 12:38 PM

I love that matte look

Posted by: JmuRiz Aug 10 2016, 01:56 PM

VERY nice looking!

Posted by: Dion Aug 10 2016, 01:58 PM

Looks good. I missed this thread before. Glad it resurfaced. I'll now know
how to tend to mine when they get worse for wear. Thanks Mark.

Posted by: Big Len Aug 10 2016, 03:03 PM

Really nice job.

Posted by: yello914 Aug 10 2016, 03:24 PM

Wheels look great

Posted by: Reverend Troublemaker Aug 10 2016, 04:46 PM

Looking great Mark...

T

Posted by: Mark Henry Aug 10 2016, 08:44 PM

Now I'm fucking pissed

Two + days work down the shitter.

Sprayed 2 rims with rustoleum clear and the f'in paint curdled, same stuff, same cans, off the same lowes shelf.
I should have known better than to use rattle can garbage.
I swear the clear is lacquer.
Stuff is just junk.
Rustoleum is garbage.
So pissed.....

Posted by: sixnotfour Aug 11 2016, 04:55 AM

Fudge , they looked great though...I have the same experience with bomb cans..results may vary..

Posted by: matthepcat Aug 11 2016, 12:39 PM

bummer, I had the same exact thing happen. Gave up and powder-coated a solid color.