Jump to content
Det_Riot

Brushing the Wagon Wheels

Recommended Posts

For me, I've always found that while building a car, the one piece that seems to tie the car together the most is the wheel selection. Walking through car shows, I can't even begin to explain how many times a car has caught my eye and then immediately lost it by their wheel choice. I'll agree, with every car, there isn't just one type of wheel that will set the car off right and some wheels work better for one person on the same car than the next. All of these, are why I decided to strip down the perfectly find wheels on my car and try to turn them into the brushed icing on the cake. 

 

Here's my wagon as it sits currently:

32485675025_ccc04aaf73_b.jpg

 

The wheels are Verde Axis V99 in Bronze. 20x9 in the front and 20x11 in the rear. Since the offset of the 20x10.5 wheel was wrong, we had a set of 20x9 fronts sent off to weldcraft to be widened. Most people will probably say "why would you want to change wheels, they look fine?", "I like the teal with the bronze", "Wow, the teal and bronze play off each other perfectly!". While I don't disagree with any of these statements, something about the wheel's don't work for me. 

 

It's too many colors. IMO, cars should follow the 3 color theme, 1 main, two accents. Teal being the main, yellow calipers being accent 1, and black being accent 2. That's why the bronze throws me for a loop. I can dig the bronze on teal, I can't dig the bronze on the yellow calipers. 

 

SO with all of that being said, here's the finish I'm going for:

 

14624305_349593098734261_577824927976416

 

Brushed Aluminum with a Tinted Clear. It looks flawless on this style wheel. Granted those are HRE's, they follow a similar design so if I can get the brush right, I think the new finish will definitely class up these wheels.

 

If you're following along to CTS-V Things on LEP Automotive's Youtube channel, you saw that Aircraft stripper was a failed experiment in stripping the paint off the wheels. I picked them up last night from my buddy who acid stripped them and here's basically what they look like now. 

 

32780240884_3ca0dfcf5a_b.jpg

 

After deciding to just "go for the gold" with one of these spoke windows, here's what I got:

 

33493477441_399f55db9f_b.jpg

33493477351_19fd9f1da2_b.jpg

32808946773_81133678be_b.jpg

32780240914_a6b59f7cf7_b.jpg

 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out for about 20 minutes of effort. The biggest challenge will definitely be keeping strokes consistent as you can see some assorted swirls from lifting the sandpaper on and off. I still haven't decided on the best plan of action for the faces but as of now I'm leaning towards something like this:

 

32780240954_fc96575fa5_b.jpg

 

The intention is to trim down the "base" so that it sits in the center cap grove, then slowly work around the wheel using strokes in the same direction. 

I'll keep this updated as the wheels progress! Any help or insight is greatly appreciated =D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think you're going to need some sort of padding between the wood and the sand paper to soften the blow when the paper meets the edge of the spokes. Otherwise I think the paper will just keep getting ripped off. There are foam/backed sanding squares you can buy that have 1/4" thick foam backing, then you can wrap /bend them over the edge of the wood, then clamp or staple them in place. I'd recommend maybe the clamp method, so as the paper wears out you can unclamp, then shift it over to a fresh pad surface and re-clamp. Once you get them knocked down to where you want to put the final finish on, you could swap out the sanding pads for large scotch brite material and do the same process as with the sand paper.

 

Padded sanding squares:

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G05EI8Y/ref=twister_B00G05EI70?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

 

Large scotch brite:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Scotch-Brite-Heavy-Industrial-Scouring/dp/B003FYJ83S/ref=sr_1_4_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1490622526&sr=8-4&keywords=scotch+brite+pad

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also if you want to get that profile of the wood block a dead nuts perfect match to the spoke profile, these things are the shit:

 

413-wc+EkRL.jpg

 

https://www.amazon.com/QEP-10032-10-Inch-Contour-Gauge/dp/B003N1H9VG/ref=sr_1_2?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1490622927&sr=1-2&keywords=plastic+contour+gauge

 

There are many different kinds, some have metal teeth, some have plastic. My thought was the plastic might be more wheel-friendly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, 95riosnake said:

I think you're going to need some sort of padding between the wood and the sand paper to soften the blow when the paper meets the edge of the spokes. Otherwise I think the paper will just keep getting ripped off. There are foam/backed sanding squares you can buy that have 1/4" thick foam backing, then you can wrap /bend them over the edge of the wood, then clamp or staple them in place. I'd recommend maybe the clamp method, so as the paper wears out you can unclamp, then shift it over to a fresh pad surface and re-clamp. Once you get them knocked down to where you want to put the final finish on, you could swap out the sanding pads for large scotch brite material and do the same process as with the sand paper.

 

Padded sanding squares:

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G05EI8Y/ref=twister_B00G05EI70?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

 

Large scotch brite:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Scotch-Brite-Heavy-Industrial-Scouring/dp/B003FYJ83S/ref=sr_1_4_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1490622526&sr=8-4&keywords=scotch+brite+pad

 

 

That's a brilliant idea. I was definitely planning on putting something to soften the blow on the wheel faces but wasn't positive exactly what I was going to use, the clamp is a damn good idea. I can definitely dig that. And I have the metal tooth one already! I started playing around with cutting it before I found it so I made a rough cardboard template then transferred it to wood, etc, etc, etc. It's hard to do stuff in wood when you don't have the right tools haha, damn new home ownership, separating me from my dad's endless collection of tools 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Prokiller said:

there's also these things.  same type of material as those pool noodles.  they can be bent to shape easily and mounted to your wood.  

http://www.eastwood.com/soft-sanders-6-pack.html

 

hehehe, you can mount my wood ;] 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd say i'm like 75% complete, hence why I haven't updated haha but here's some more progress pictures:

 

33955353386_e9cbaaac94_h.jpg

 

33996841735_6fca9ccbcb_b.jpg

 

33867159511_da803f33aa_b.jpg

 

33995221535_2a4d45bdc8_b.jpg

 

33995221345_80aa93eeea_b.jpg

 

As of now, I need to finish brushing the barrels on the passenger side and FINALLY get them powdercoated. Per usual, I started this project way too late in the season and now I don't have the time to take my car down to finish it all up, which will unfortunately cause me to miss a few things in order to finish this out. I did find though that the process I used that worked best for me is todo the faces using the jig. It was difficult and time consuming but it produced the best pattern by far. After that, I went back through and did the rest by hand and elbow grease. Thankfully for the rest of the wheels and to clean up the ones arleady completed, my guy at discount is going to let me use the balancer to mount the wheels too and get the barrels knocked out real quickly so win win in that regard! 

 

Here's some pictures of them on the car

 

34611658401_728c2cb006_b.jpg

 

34611661591_0884b22828_b.jpg

 

33900794944_e64cdc7a04_b.jpg

 

18835517_1727227327294354_53475165107984

 

33569967224_b5a377844e_b.jpg

 

33602088843_ece3535222_b.jpg

 

34411858645_e92f8b6e47_b.jpg

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/12/2017 at 3:56 PM, 95riosnake said:

I still think the bronze looked good, but so does the brushed. Did you clear coat/seal them after brushing?

it's on my never ending list of shit I need to finish. Here's the finished center caps:

 

34581321443_0b271bd285_b.jpg[/img]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Number Tew said:

O I didn't know they were made out of salsa.  Makes sense now.

 

Genuine Verde Salsa, straight from Taiwan!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Update: Brushed tinted project is dead in the water. Ended up tearing the wrap off. Not that I was bored of the teal, just was ready for something new since there isn't a whole lot of exterior mods that are able to be done. Have a few colors in my mind lined up for the car over he winter and either way, I think that a nice bronze wheel will set off either one. I think i'm going to try n do a brushed bronze now instead so all of my hard work isn't gone to a total waste! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


SN95 Source ©

The premier SN95 Community

×
×
  • Create New...