Awesome man! I can't wait to see how they turn out!

 

Finished sanding and cleaning the rims (will need to clean them again before painting). Today is a wash so hoping tomorrow I start!

 

Awesome! I can't wait to see them!

 

Sneak peak:


I also did a light wet sanding of the primer using 600 grit to smooth it out. Once this cures (24 hours) I'll compound and polish the clear coat and it'll be ready to mount!

 

That looks good! Reminds me of the mystic chrome on the mustang cobra.

 

It does slightly change colours from light to shade but I like that subtle. I feel I would've done a better job if it wasn't so breezy but I should be able to hide most of the perfections after the polishing.

 

Painting outside sucks. The dirt is impossible to control. They look like they turned out great!

 

Im pretty happy with it this far. Just finished rim #2. I forgot to mention that the inside of the rim will be black. I'll do that after the curing process for the front.

 

All 4 fronts are done. I'll see how the curing is by tomorrow afternoon and see if I will be painting the backside. I'll take a few more photos when I'm sure I can touch the rims again.

 

Finished all 4 rims. 2 of them turned perfect. One, a small section of the spoke the tape pulled off the clear coat down to the paint itself. The other, the painter's tape took off the clear coat, paint and primer leaving the bare metal along the rim in a few spots. I have no idea how this happened, I let the fronts cure for over 36 hours. Ugh. Pictures when done curing, and it's windy as **** outside.

 

That sucks... next time if you aren't going to take the tires off, use index cards and shove them in between the tire and rim.

 

The tires themselves are end of life, so I'm not worried about them.
The rim edge I think I can fix by masking off the edges around it and try to feather the sides. However, that clear coat peel I'm not sure if I want to sand those sections and start over or see if I can't feather the clear coat in via 3 light coats.

This is the final product:

 

curious how they look mounted on the car

 

Those look good, as far as why those areas pulled the paint. What did you do for prep before painting?

 

Hopefully I can have those pictures by next week.
The sanding was done between 60-320 grit sandpaper, then I cleaned with isopropyl alcohol twice to make sure there was no dirt, then a tack cloth to remove the dust that may have landed on it since I was doing everything outside. 2 coats of primer, wet sanded the primer with 600 grit to smooth out the orange peel, then sprayed with the colour and clear. I used scotch blue painter's tape for the creasing to spray the black on the back (which was very successful) then standard masking tape to cover the rest. The scotch tape did the clear coat peel and the masking tape did the rim damage despite being careful on pulling the tape slowly at a 45 degree angle.

 

It's always a huge risk putting tape on fresh paint, it's possible that the areas that pulled the primer had not off gases completely or the base coat didn't and then the tape just pulled it all off

 

Absolutely, but by the time I started the masking, it was 36 hours after spray, so it should've cured enough to not have that kind of damage.

 

that's still pretty fresh paint. I'm going to assume its fairly humid where youre at?

 

The last week it's been mild at best. In fake temp numbers, it's been low 70's, 30% humidity give or take max. On the weekend it rained but I was already well done before then. In high temps/humidity, when I was painting my interior trim, I did have to redo 1 piece completely as the paint wrinkled, but the masking didn't pull anything off.

 

Thats most likely what happened. They hadnt fully cured. Hopefully you can get it fixed.

 

It wasn't good weather for the last few days, but I did manage to "fix" the clear coat peel rim. I'm hoping some compound and polish should make it unnoticeable.Sanded with 600 and 1500 grit sandpaper to really bring those edges down. More clear coat peeled as I was sanding which is good - it won't bubble up in the future, but it went pretty wide.

 

Its going to be hard to blend, but it should turn out ok. I really like that color.

 

You were right. The areas for the feathering I guess don't work as well if your paint has a higher viscosity. Tried to sand down as much as I could, then compound and polish. While I'm disappointed in this, I'm by no means a professional and if I ever do this again, it's a learning experience.

I still need to fix the other wheel, but at least the damage is on the rim itself. Should be a bit easier to hide. It's mild/low humidity today so I'll be doing that tonight. I may try to sand down to the paint and see if I can't do any additional blending, then reapply the clear coat. I'll have to do that by tomorrow for the can's shelf life.

 

I would just put that rim on the back passenger side of the car and call it good. Its minimal at best. I know how hard it is to paint stuff outside. My first real project was a 15 year old urethane ground effect piece that did nothing but fight me. I kept stripping it down until I finally got it right. What primer did you use? I always did etching.

 

I had etching but ran out, so I used regular primer. The 2 that came out flawless, 1 had the etching (before it ran out), the other was the Rustoleum Primer. Same for the blemished rims, 1 was etch, the other was primer. In chronological order, 2 and 3 were perfect. The first one with the clear coat peeling, and the last one was the rim damage. Strange.