Det_Riot Posted March 24, 2017 Report Share Posted March 24, 2017 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: 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: 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. After deciding to just "go for the gold" with one of these spoke windows, here's what I got: 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: 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 More sharing options...
95riosnake Posted March 27, 2017 Report Share Posted March 27, 2017 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 More sharing options...
95riosnake Posted March 27, 2017 Report Share Posted March 27, 2017 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: 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 More sharing options...
Det_Riot Posted March 27, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2017 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 More sharing options...
Prokiller Posted March 27, 2017 Report Share Posted March 27, 2017 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det_Riot Posted March 27, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2017 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 More sharing options...
Orange 94 Posted June 9, 2017 Report Share Posted June 9, 2017 Did you finish these Bryan?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number Tew Posted June 10, 2017 Report Share Posted June 10, 2017 Yea, Bryan. With your new Sexual Teal Whale Cannon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det_Riot Posted June 12, 2017 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2017 I'd say i'm like 75% complete, hence why I haven't updated haha but here's some more progress pictures: 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number Tew Posted June 12, 2017 Report Share Posted June 12, 2017 I think I can see the appeal over the bronze now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det_Riot Posted June 12, 2017 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2017 Just now, Number Tew said: I think I can see the appeal over the bronze now You must be a visual learner ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
95riosnake Posted June 12, 2017 Report Share Posted June 12, 2017 I still think the bronze looked good, but so does the brushed. Did you clear coat/seal them after brushing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det_Riot Posted June 18, 2017 Author Report Share Posted June 18, 2017 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: [/img] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number Tew Posted June 18, 2017 Report Share Posted June 18, 2017 O I didn't know they were made out of salsa. Makes sense now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det_Riot Posted June 18, 2017 Author Report Share Posted June 18, 2017 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 More sharing options...
Josh@RideTech Posted June 26, 2017 Report Share Posted June 26, 2017 Came out good, Bryan! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det_Riot Posted October 17, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2017 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 More sharing options...
Number Tew Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 Lame. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det_Riot Posted October 19, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 5 hours ago, Number Tew said: Lame. You aren't wrong; you're just an asshole 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
