How do you polish a wheel?, I want to know..... Options

[John]

I see polished wheels from time to time (Al Reed does amazing things).

See the attached image below of a 6" cookie cutter (ATS wheel).

These are cast wheels. How does one go about polishing these?

I am assuming that they must first be sanded smooth with coarse, medium, fine, extra fine, extra extra extra fine sandpaper then polished, polished, and then polished some more.

How is the wheel sanded? How does one keep the wheel looking flat/even on a curved surface? I have considered doing this but lack the knowledge of getting started.

I realize that each wheel will take up excessive amounts of time, but I still would like to hear how it is done...

[burton73]

John,

You have just explained how to do it. It is a dirty job. You need a powerful buffer and a very large flex buffer and dry chrome rouge and rakes for the wheels and an area that will get very dirty and in the end whatever you do to make money do some more of that and have Al do your wheels. It is a nasty job and in no way is fun. The black crap that comes off from the dirty aluminum gets in your pours and is just a mess to clean.

Cast wheels are harder to do than forged because cast has pours in it. We buffed plastic for 30 years at my factory. The same idea but white stuff coming off the parts them they looked great. We used dry chrome rouge. When there was a tough spot we used a special compound or went back to sanding through the grits. This can be fun for 10 mints.

Bob

[gotxqss]

Well there might be another way.. Worth a try at least...

I recently bought a parts car with a set of 15" 5lug fuchs... they have the polished faces and lips... they looked horrible when I got them and I actually thought they were meant to be the sorta silver stock finish I've seen on some cars...

I spent $35 roughly buying a mothers mini powerball and some wheel polish that was 1/3 the price of the mothers polish... hit each spoke for 2-3 minutes and 5 or so on the lip... They came ALIVE with just that. Yeh they don't compare but for the cheap investment you'll be very surprised how good they really can get... doesn't hurt to try. End result was I ended up extremely happy and for the money it was a bonus.. Car is looking better then ever.. Ill try and see if I have a before and after...

Just some options!!!

[JB 914]

i did the same as gotxqss

i just polished my 4 lug fuchs with mothers polish. i used some microfiber towels from costco and just did the old rub on / rub off. i only spent about 10-15 minutes per wheel and they look damn good. i suspect if i spent more time they would look even better.