more about wheels

[6ball]

I've seen the other questions about wheels, but I have a question I did not see. Has anyone tried stripping off the clear and just polishing the wheels and not recoating??

[Guest firefox]

I just bought the aircraft quality paint stripper yesterday and plan to try just that.

Hope to get to it in a week or two, if it comes out good. I will post it,if not I will be very quiet.

[Ronnie]

If you strip and polish the wheels and don't apply a coating what will prevent oxidation (that will appear as a white powder on the servace of the wheels), from starting? Are you planning on polishing them again every month or so or do you know another trick that will prevent oxidation?

I'm just curious about what your thinking is on stripping and polishing the wheels and then not coating them to protect them.

[6ball]

The Reatta wheels I have seem to have a brushed finish on them. What I really wanted to know was if anyone has polished these kind, and how much of a pain was it? I do have other wheels that came polished and I'm not sure if they have a clear coat or not. They are a 3 spoke Weld wheel

16 X 8 that I have on my El Camino. Do they come with clear coat when new?

[olbuickman]

6ball, I have one of my four stock wheels stripped of the clear coat and polished to a chrome like finish. Last winter in my basement I started this project and I bet that I have at least 3 hours on the one wheel alone. I started with the aircraft paint stripper and then 400 and 600 wetsandpaper and finished with the 1200 paper. I then used flitz polish and cotton buffs on a drill to get the high gloss finish. It is a dirty job doing this work,I would rather detail a Reatta than doing this wheel polishing. I am real tempted to strip the other 3 wheels and then have a shop polish them out. When I get them back I would spray them myself with 2 coats of clear. Frank

[DTakas]

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Edited January 2, 2019 by DTakas (see edit history)