Wheel Painting
The previous owner of this bike had stripped and polished the wheel rims and while it looked good it was hardly the most practical finish for a bike that's used year round: A hint of rain, let alone road salt, and the wheels turned into a furry mess. So I decided to respray the rims. I went with Simoniz Tough Paint. This claims not to need primer but I wanted a durable finish so I used an etch primer first.
I started by thoroughly cleaning the wheels. Obviously, I didn't want any residual wax or grease on the wheels so I started with SDOC 100 and a jetwash and then went over them again with washing up liquid and a small scouring sponge.
With the wheels dry I keyed the rims with 200 grade paper, followed by a clean with aerosol de-greaser and then a final wipe over with thinners. As I was only painting the rims, I didn't remove the disks and I only needed to mask the tyre sidewalls. I found the best way was to overlap the masking tape onto the rim and then run my thumbnail around the rim to cut off the excess tape. This worked well and I was finally ready to start spraying the primer.
I used the rig shown so that I could spin the wheels while spraying. The first coat was just a dust coat and then I used two more, thicker coats. I used U-Pol etch primer and I was really impressed with how smoothly it went on – good enough that I didn't need to flat it down.
Once primed, I took the wheels indoors and left them for 24 hours per the instructions. The following day it was time for the colour coats. I did these with a similar technique: A dust coat followed by two progressively heavier coats.
The Tough Paint is slower drying than normal aerosol paint and it can initially look a bit "Orange peel" but it flows out as it dries, like an enamel, leaving a really smooth finish. I'm happy with the result. Time will tell how durable it is but for now it's looking good.
