Morty8833

I painted mine over a year ago using dupli-color high performance wheel coating in matte black and clear coat. I washed the wheels, sanded, cleaned, painted with 3-4 coats black and the about 2 coats clear, all with the tires on and its been over a year and when they are clean they still look brand new. I get compliments all the time on my wheels. I think I might redo them this summer to make them pop a little more though.

SteedaBrandon

That looks great, nice job! Love the gray with black wheels.

r0cky00

Yeah, that's exactly what I want! Those turned out really, really good. Great job on those!


I like the black 5.0 on there also, I assume you painted that too?

JayyVee

Have you thought about plasti-dipping your rims? Maybe try that first if you've never done any wheel painting;

1. you might actually dig the plasti-dip.

2. it teaches good painters techniques - that you can just peel off if it doesn't go well.

http://youtu.be/OlyB3FbYRRs

http://youtu.be/6K3mH0w9kR8

http://youtu.be/WPEzDDul1Zk

Morty8833

Yes I have painted lots of stuff on my car, the 5.0 badges, calipers, fuse-box cover, coil covers, intake cover, faux-badge, wheels, Everything has held up great and turned out great except the calipers which ill be re-doing this summer with the G2 system. I plasti-dipped the faux badge in case I didn't like it but it turned out good as well.

r0cky00

Well, today I stopped out at Menards and picked up 3 cans of black Plasti Dip spray for $6 a piece and I decided to test this out on my extra OEM Mazda rims first.

I'll have to post some pics because they turned out awesome. I just did the one so far but it covered up the scrapes and everything. Looks really good.

Wondering though, how did you cover up the Ford emblem so it didn't get painted over? When I was painting, I just used painters tape for the tire and the rest was wide open... I know in the videos he was able to mask off stripes w/ tape but he had to paint them very quickly to get 3-4 coates and then removed the tape... I assume you taped over it so it had a tab to pull off afterwards (scrunch the tape and then cut it to just cover the emblem prehaps?).

If you can answer that, it would help a bunch. I have 3 more rims to test on before I do my Mustangs. (: Oh, and how long before each coat did you wait? 30 minutes or just a couple? I waited a few minutes on mine, did first 2 coats, then rotated wheel so it was upside down, found it wasn't as even as I thought but this helped to fix that.

Really glad you guys suggested this stuff because it's perfect for me to test and not have to worry too much about permanently wrecking the rims!

I would have been happy saving $440 on a set of rims for my Mazda 3 too had I known about this, lol. I'm thinking about using this plasti dip and then painting over that with a gunmetal paint since it seems like that's the perfect base coat to be painted... if you don't like it, rip it off and redo w/ another color. Should work that way I would think!

Morty8833

I just ended up covering the ford emblems with painters tape and then peeling it off after it dried completely.

ancona46

plasti-dip ftw

r0cky00

I must say, this was easier than I thought... took a bit of time to do but so far it looks like it was worth the effort!



And the final outcome of Plasti Dip. Matte black stripes and matte black wheels. I really appreciate all of the help and suggestions. Made my decision an informed one. Thanks everyone! I really like the way this turned out.



After I took this picture, I realized I needed to use some tire shine on my wheels to make them look less dirty. lol

Minion

Hey r0cky00,

I'm thinking of doing my vinyl stripes over (they didn't come out as well as I hopped...my own fault) how did the plasti dip work out? do the stripes look good up close? How are they holding up, or did you remove them? Thanks!