Welcome to RAW Works. My name is Raymond and I live in the western suburbs of Sydney. This blog will be a portal for me to photo-document the wheels I refurbish and repaint. This is only a side hobby for me so there won't be any crazy custom jobs! My skills have only stretched so far as to using body repair materials, resprays and polishing, so anything that requires welding and unbuckling will be beyond what I can do. I hope to improve on my current skills as I go along, and as a lover of wheels, it's a way for me to express my art side as well as giving life to some tired wheels again.

At the moment, I'm just scouring through eBay for damaged wheels selling for cheap. If you have any wheels you don't need anymore, throw me an email/comment. At the moment I'm just buying sets of wheels to refurb then sell them off. I prefer not to do personal jobs/requests as I don't trust myself with that yet! But that said, pass me an email/comment if you need any help wheel-wise.

My Facebook page is @ http://www.facebook.com/raysalloywheelworks/, please "like" it!

Cheers.

Oct 5, 2010

Art project V - Polishing

So I forgot yesterday was a public holiday. The sodablaster wasn't open until today. And gosh am I tired. My back aches, my fingers feels like they're under rigor mortis, and I think I've ingested way too much aluminium particles. But I got it all polished up. And I'm completely drained. Here are some pics. I'm not gonna bother explaining what I did in each step, a brief caption will do.

Back from the powdercoaters. Note the surface:


My working area:


Comparison of lips. After 240 grit sanding vs. raw sodablast.


Close-up of post-240 grit sanding:


Close-up of post-600 grit sanding:


Close-up of post-1500 grit sanding:


I sanded from 240 grit, then moved on to 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500 and finally 2000.

This was after polishing with black and white compound. Note the smudging:


And finally, finished it off with Mothers Mag Polish:


Comparison of lips. Raw sodablast vs. fully polished:


Far from perfect, but time was against me. I spent too little time with sandpaper grit 240 and 400, hence the leftover scratches you can see between the bolt holes, and the rough spots where the lip bends.

Anyway, tomorrow I do the wheel stands. Hopefully I can get Dad to help me out!

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