Thread: Painting chrome?

The very best approach would be to take the rims to a chrome plating shop and have them strip the chrome off back to bare steel, and then paint.

Failing that, sand through the 200 - 400 - 800 grades of wet and dry, etch prime, and paint.

...might also be worthwhile making a phone call to a powder coating shop just to see if powdercoat is more chrome-friendly.

Chrome is hard an smooth but is just as easy to paint as any metal. Stripping would give you back steel, the chrome provides a far better coating which will resist rusting better. Just remember once you paint the chrome you won't be able to get the finish back unless the wire wheels are dis assembled and stripped and then rechromed.

There is no point is rubbing through grades of paper you just have to remove the shine and provide a key for the paint. Fine paper won't give you the result you need which is gloss removed and something for the primer to grab onto ( scratches)

The best paint to use would be a two pack urethane system like the one used on motor vehicles. Depending on the brand of paint you buy there will be an epoxy or 2 pack primer for maximum adhesion. Any primer will fill easily 150 -240 scratches left by the paper when you remove the gloss. The deeper the scratches the better chance the primer has of sticking.

Just make sure you clean off any coatings on the chrome such as dirt wax or polish with a solvent ( you can use any thinner it won't hurt the chrome) then sand the shine off.

As master splinter suggested you could get them powder coated, you could sand them and then get them powder coated or the powder people may suggest that you have them sandblasted (again only need to roughen the surface not remove all the chrome) . This would get in and around the spokes quicker and better than you sanding by hand. Powder coating is a lot better at covering all the surfaces of wire wheels than trying to spray them with a gun. You have to point the spray gun at every surface around the spokes and rims. real pain in the neck. you end up missing bits and then getting ajacent surfaces with runs when you try to paint the bald spots. Powder coating is done electomagnetically and puts an even coat all around the spokes even if you don't actually point the gun there.

There is paint made to paint white wall tyres, actually its available in many colours, but its been a few years since white walls have been in fashion and I havn't seen any signs of it lately.

Maybe able to find out if you do a google search.

Here is one place to get it.

http://www.rangerpaint.com/collections/frontpage

If you were going to pay to have them powder coated, you might as well pay to get them rechromed.

I had chrome bumpers on an old mazda colour coded to good effect by a paint shop when they sprayed the car. Just rubbed it down a bit and used some kind of special primer from memory. Never flaked or chipped that I can remember.