Painting Estrellas!

[Safety Guy]

I finally am getting going, at least on one wheel. It's nice and sunny today and I finished up sanding the areas I want to paint with 320 grit paper (recommended by Duplicolor in the linked video). After that I washed it and looked for areas I missed that needed more sanding. The Estrellas have "nooks and crannies" that take some effort and imagination to get to with the sanding paper. After that I washed it again and taped it up with blue painter's tape and had at it with Duplicolor etching primer after using tack cloth to get anything left on the surface:



This primer is greenish tinted and can be sanded, but I'll just let it dry and then apply the Duplicolor wheel coating in black:



It's not that I'm advertising for Duplicolor, but that we will see how it looks and holds up in the real world. So there are the cans in the pic for those of you who are interested. I had to search to find a store that had the black color. Don't know why.

Here are the wheels after I cleaned them up a week or two ago:



I should have a pic of the completed black enhanced wheel later on today. I also got my hubcentric rings which seem to fit well.

Going back outside to finish the last "medium" coat after the first two light ones...

Oh, the Duplicolor video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3s4nMR0yxk&feature=related

Karl

[ejp2fast]

Lookin' good!

[Safety Guy]

Thanks!

Final coat is applied and I'm just waiting a bit before removing the tape. I don't expect the demarcation lines to be perfect (the tape was hard to run in circles, since it's straight and the wheel isn't!), but I also don't expect anyone to be crawling up to my car and taking a micrometer to my paint lines!

Black finish pics...soon. After that, I'll think about adding some blue, and what shade of blue, etc. I may just like them simply black and silver.

Here it is!:



Looks like I will have to do a little detailing to clean up the borders. Something to polish with and maybe black touch-ups.



Not sure I should add some blue yet.

Comparison shot:



What do ya'll think? Leave as is? Or add some "aqua" blue to the spoke flats?

Karl

[doylerl]

Do you have center caps? Are you painting them too? Also what "flats" are you talking about? Looks good the way it is IMO.

[Safety Guy]

I have one center cap for five wheels, but I don't like them and don't plan to use any.

I may wait until I get these on the car before I consider any blue trim. By "flats" I mean what you would sand with a sanding block inside the wheel--only the tops of the spokes where they're "flat." The rest of the spokes would stay black. The rim and center would stay original silver.

Y'know, I'm thinking maybe I should paint the center area black, too. It might look a tad better. Hmmmm...

I may do the next one like that: black center, silver rim.

Karl

[lanemeyer14]

^Yeah, paint the center black as well

[Larry Hampton]

How about center black, sides of spokes blue? Oh, and blue tuner lugs.

[Safety Guy]

After eating some chicken chop suey and pondering the rainbow in relation to wheel colors, I think I'll indeed paint all the centers black. I'm convinced it looks better. It'll make painting easier, too.

Adding some blue later on is still a possibility. I want to see how they look on the car with my 175/60 Falkens first.

Karl

[kumalaba]

nice!yeah i like the black silver combo but i m not sure about putting blue with it.

[91mcnasty]

I like it for sure!!!

[Zanzer]

Lookin good Karl! :thumbup:

I agree with painting the center section black as well. It'll help hide the extra holes for the dual pattern

Here's a helpful hint for taping that will make it easier and faster - Get you a roll of 3/4" tape and do your fine demarcation line with that. Since it's narrow it's easy to bend and shape around a radius. After you have it taped off with the 3/4" then you can apply your wide tape to the edge of the narrow for large coverage

[Larry Hampton]

Instead of painting the blue, as you're not sure if you'll like it, try some blue painters tape on it first.

[Larry Hampton]

Lookin good Karl! :thumbup:

I agree with painting the center section black as well. It'll help hide the extra holes for the dual pattern

Here's a helpful hint for taping that will make it easier and faster - Get you a roll of 3/4" tape and do your fine demarcation line with that. Since it's narrow it's easy to bend and shape around a radius. After you have it taped off with the 3/4" then you can apply your wide tape to the edge of the narrow for large coverage

Don't you mean half or quarter inch tape?

[perucho]

...

Final coat is applied and I'm just waiting a bit before removing the tape. I don't expect the demarcation lines to be perfect (the tape was hard to run in circles, since it's straight and the wheel isn't!), but I also don't expect anyone to be crawling up to my car and taking a micrometer to my paint lines!

If you are happy with the results, that's all that matters! I would have to paint them again

[Zanzer]

Don't you mean half or quarter inch tape?

That works too but the 3/4" is usually well stocked and very easy to find because it's more of a standard size. 1/2" would be good but the quarter doesn't leave as much to stick the large tape to so it can be almost as painstaking as trying to use the wide 1"+ stuff. The 3/4" gives plenty of wiggle room for the 2" to bunch up without overlapping the fine layout line. If I'm doing something where I need super fine detail I will use quarter but typically I can do everything with 3/4" and 2".