At 06:35 AM 7/9/97 GMT, you wrote:
>Can you give me advice on how to paint these wheels in the correct pattern? My
>parts suppliers has plastic masks, but these cost a lot and the people who
have
>used these tell me the results are terrible (paint bleeding over parts
where it
>should not be). Most folks simply paint the whole wheel silver ...
Hert-
I did this several months ago using a paint mask ($15 new - not that much
money).
I cleaned and sanded the wheels (which were actually in pretty good shape -
just real thin on paint). Then with much masking tape and newspaper, I
worked my way around the bead to keep paint off the rubber (translated
'tyres' for those of you across the pond).
I then proceeded to paint the entire wheel with several thin coats of an
aluminum colored lacquer (spray cans from Duplicolor). The lacquer dries
quickly - so you don't have the tendency to develop runs like enamel. If
you do get a run - it sands out well.
Once the aluminum color was dry - I used the paint mask. You'll probably
get better results if you hand mask it - but it is a bit more work. The
first wheel I did was the spare - and learned a few things that I applied to
the other wheels. Since the paint mask does not fit snugly to the wheel -
black paint speckled the aluminum near the edges of the mask. Two options -
1) apply small loops of masking tape to the back of the mask to help 'stick'
tighter to the wheel, or 2) hand mask the areas where the mask does not fit
well (the rib area especially). The black lacquer I used (also from
Duplicolor) was a bit glossier than original - but I like the look of it.
Good luck,
Rich Mason
'73 MGB
Huntsville, AL
__________________________________________
e-mail--> rmason@ro.com
WWW-----> http://ro.com/~rmason
MG Page-> http://ro.com/~rmason/mgpage.htm
__________________________________________
|