Boss 5 spokes

These were my sister's old wheels. Some bad gutter rashes as well as air impact damage. Some deep scratches here and there too. Also some ghastly stains probably caused by baked on CV grease. Those stains are starting to appear on her new wheels too; I think I'll have to check out the condition of the CV boots on her car soon! Baked on brake dust as well but they're very tame compared to those grease marks. Centre-caps were pretty oxidated too - broke them while taking them off (it's like the tabs were potato chips) so they'll be gone after the refurbish.

Before pics:

Baked on grease:


Baked on brake dust and light gutter rash (some heavy gashes in other sections as well):


Grease spots and air impact damage:

Prep:

Sanded back to metal on damaged areas:


Used fibreglass filler for metal to repair the gashes and scrapes:




Got a bit excited around the edge though:


60/120/240 grit dry sanding to level out filler:










Ready for primer:


Etch primer (Concept Paints) mixed with thinner in 5:1 ratio. Came out of the gun clean:


240 grit dry sand followed by spray putty (Concept Paints; same mixing ratio) over unlevel sections and scratches, followed by 240 grit dry sand again:




Primer again. Gun was exhibiting a spitting pattern but that was due to not oiling the spray gun components (I know better now):



Some imperfections that will show up after the top coat. Due to not enough filler in some sections, and a few accidental chips while moving the wheels around:

Paint & Polish:

Used wheel silver (Concept Paints). Their other acrylic products are not mixed and assuming it was the same for the wheel silver, I used a 1:1 mixing ratio. Paint came out as viscous as thinner but I went ahead to spray anyway. First pair I painted:






There were lots of air bubbles in the pot. Paint was extremely runny. Silver particles did not seem to mix in very well, gotta make note to mix very thoroughly before shooting it.

High sections came out bad. Hard to see in the following photo though, but there's some light streaks:



Worst section of the first pair. Two possible culprits - inadequate sanding in this section of the primer, or maybe caused due to runny paint? Looks a little like orange peel:


Best outcome of the first pair:


There were also small blobs (specks) of paint that landed on the surface. Didn't take pics of them but they could be seen in the overview pics.

For the last two, I used a 5:1 mixing ratio. The orange peel effect is even more apparent with these two. However, paint did come out less runny and there were less specks of paint. To be honest, the last two came out much worse than the first two. I'm pretty shocked. I guess I'll try a 2:1 mixing ratio next...

After:

Had let the paint to dry for 3+ days. Used polishing compound, followed by ScratchX then finally WheelWax. Not much difference:




You can easily see the difference between the two pairs. The smooth finish was achieved using 1:1 mixing ratio, and the rough finish was due to the 5:1 mixing ratio. Polishing has removed the specks mentioned before when using 1:1 mixing ratio, but the roughness of the last two couldn't be polished out. Texture is smooth for both though.

From far away, the only tell-tale sign that they have different finishes is that the rough-looking pair have a more satin finish, whereas the smooth-looking pair have a glossy finish





... and ...



versus...



Can you tell the difference?

All photos @ my Photobucket.

Next up I'll be polishing the lips of my BBS RSII.