Painting Steel Wheels

[goaferboy]

What's the best way to paint steel wheels? I'm thinking of getting some standard 'Rocco steelies and painting them black (with Rolling Stones playing in the background, naturally). I'm not really fussed about the finish to be honest, I just don't want the paint coming off and showing the silver underneath. I'm thinking POR15 or possibly a matte finish. Anything as long as it sticks well to the wheel and is black.

[the edmundator]

Same as painting anything else... it's mostly in the preparation. Take the wheels off the car, sand them down and get a nice, smooth, keyed surface for primer. I've only used silver wheel paint from Halfords rattle cans before for wheels, followed by lacquer, which gives a good quality finish. Although by the time you've invested in all the paint, prep materials and all the time and effort, you might find it's actually not much more expensive to take them to a wheel refurbishing place - I'd imagine about £30/wheel for a simple finish on a steel wheel.

[dozzum]

if you use hammerite you dont have to worry about laquer or primer

[fonzooorooo]

bare metalled mine, then painted in corroless (excuse spelling) to keep any rust at bay (there was only so long I wanted to spend mucking about with the angle grinder/twist knot brush) did the inside in black quid shop rattle tins and the outside in silver hammerite rattle tins.

A year later, and the stone chips are rusting just as much through the hammerite as through the quid shop black.

[jim91]

I've done a lot of painting in both black and silver,if going for black a good enamel is great at keeping rust at bay! even a brush on enamel can give great finish if you take your time. B&Q used to do international Japlac paint, great stuff, genolite(if you can still get it)

Although as said already, sand down well, plenty coats of primer, flatten the primer smooth with 1000 or 800 and then plenty of light topcoats.

£10 worth of materials should have them all sorted!