I am already thinking about winter mods for my bike. I would like to polish part of my rims and paint the remaining part. Attached is a picture of the front wheel, the rear has pitted much more and is a lot duller. What I would like to do is polish the smooth part to a chrome like shine and paint the rough texture part with a matt black paint. My thinking is I would have to polish first and then put a clear coat of some kind on before I painted the black. If I paint before the clear coat I think I would end up with a gloss black instead of matt black. So my questions for the people in the know are:
-what type of clear coat can I use on aluminum
-how can I prep the rough part with so the paint sticks? I can't sand that but I need to do something or it will just peel off
-any suggestions on the best wheel polish, and best way to apply?
Please feel free to add anything you think I should do/know before I start. This will truly be a learning experience for me. Thanks.

 

I too would be interested in the best way to handle this. I have plenty of aluminum that needs attention.

 

Thought I would bump this back to the top. I have ordered a new rear tire so as soon as it gets here I want to polish the rims. I think I have given up on the idea of painting the rough surface but I would really like to get the smooth surface shiny again. Any recommendations on a good polish and how to do it. Thanks.

 

be ready for a challenge bud... not the end of the world but few things you are going to need.. buffing wheel will make the lips go so much faster, we use smaller buffs on die grinder air tools to get into the small spots...
i would suggest going from med grit paper down to 2000 wet before moving over to the polishing wheels.
for the prep, after you done with the polishing work, mask and blast the surface you want to paint... if that is not an option for you denature alch is really going to be your best option to try and clean off the polishing goo left on the wheel, then mask and shoot... i would prob use an etching primer first, then top coat it with the black...
if you decided that you wanted these powder coated we could do that for you as well if you wanted to do the polishing work to try and save some $$$ first... here are some wheels we have polished and powder coated... then cleared the whole wheel with a clear made for polished metal... this way you do not have to worry about cleaning it over and over

















these we brushed the lips rather than polished... had a cool look to it when done


on these the custom saved some money and polished the lips on their own and just had us lay the black on the centers

 

I have done it on my other bike.
https://www.hdforums.com/forum/softa...lid-wheel.html
You can clear coat it after polish but it looks dull imo. Just keep it clean and use some lyndall pads, you should be fine, make sure you never use harsh chemical, you will screw it up right away. To paint the black part, rough it and use etching primer, it stays long. For your application, it is hard to mask, I would plastidip the black part, much easier.

 

that looks great!

 

I have the same rims and just did my rear when I had the tire changed about 3 weeks ago. I took it to my local indy at the end of the day, had them pull off the tire and then brought the rim home to clean it up. Here is what I did:

-Polished the hell out of the lip area as much as I could with a powerball and powercone
-taped off the spokes and outside rim just leaving the silver part of the spokes to be painted
-rubbed down the area to be painted with alcohol a few times
-spayed 2 thin coats of etching primer (rattle can)
-sprayed several coats of a silver (rattle can)
-sprayed several coats of clear (rattle can)
-polished the spoke area by hand (not painted part)
-used Gojo waterless hand wipes to clean off all the black that got on the fresh paint and polished area as the will not dull the polish.
-rubbed on polish sealer on entire rim

It came out looking great but already the aluminum has started to dull after a few weeks. If I would have used Joe's method of wet sanding first it would have looked even better and I'll do that on the front rim some time soon. I hate polished aluminum!!!

 

On my 1998 Sportster I bought an extra set of rims and dropped them off at Metal Masters (metal and aluminum polishers) They bead blasted the rims to get the grime off, mirror polished the flat surfaces the I painted them. I used Duplicolor Wheel Paint, etching primer and their Clear Coat.




Karsten