Wheel rims have to withstand a lot of tests, including not only potholes on the roads, but also pebbles flying out from under the wheels of neighboring cars, the effects of chemicals used on roads in winter, frequent dampness and much more. All this affects the appearance of the discs, primarily destroying their paintwork. But scratches are not a reason to buy new wheels or order expensive painting at a service center, because you can restore the attractive appearance yourself in a garage.
A few years ago, the only common method was to paint the wheels yourself with automotive enamel. But the advantages of such a coating end with its availability and ease of work, while the durability or decent appearance of the wheels could only be dreamed of. Now the possibilities have expanded, and there are already dozens of ways to restore the paintwork of wheel rims of varying complexity and labor intensity, and three options can be called optimal: painting with polymer paint, painting with acrylic paint and chrome plating. It should be noted that each method requires certain special equipment, but it can be replaced with household appliances, so this work at home is quite feasible.
Painting with polymer paint
The disc is sandblasted and painted with polymer paint
Powder paint is good for everyone: it is durable, beautiful and abrasion resistant. It is this technology that is used to paint alloy wheel rims in the factory. If professional equipment is available, all work is performed in the following sequence:
- checking the disc for scratches and other defects;
- removing old paint and removing all signs of corrosion;
- degreasing the surface;
- priming the disc with a liquid composition;
- application of powder paint;
- processing of the disc in a thermal oven, where it dries and acquires a glossy shine.
Of course, not everyone has a special thermal oven at home, but this is not a problem, because today painting with a slightly different type of powder paint is available, which does not require polymerization under high temperature. A similar paint is used for painting modern metal doors. It is a little less durable, does not have such a well-defined glossy shine, but is still very good. The sequence of actions here is the same as in the factory cycle, only firing is replaced by regular drying.
Is there an alternative to chrome plating?
To obtain a metallic shine, it is not necessary to coat the part with chrome if it is made of non-ferrous metal. Alloy wheels can simply be polished to a mirror finish. There are many advantages of such polishing, but the main thing is that it prevents peeling of the mirror layer, since it is the metal itself that shines, and not its coating.
To polish alloy wheels, a minimum of consumables are used, so this service is affordable for most motorists. Companies involved in mirror polishing claim that they use high-precision equipment and substances that are unique in their properties. However, there are technologies that allow polishing even in garage conditions.
First of all, you need to remove the protective coating applied to the alloy wheels. If this is a product from a reputable manufacturer, then removing such a film mechanically is quite problematic. The fact is that the hardness of the coating composition (disc varnish) exceeds the hardness of the alloy itself. Therefore, it is better to use special removers to remove the protective coating.
When purchasing a remover for coating discs, you should pay attention to its specification, and not to the degree of aggressiveness or toxicity. You won't be able to remove the film from the discs with a regular solvent; you don't even have to try. True, various Chinese replicas may well have a film on them that can be washed off with any solvent.
On a note
Special protective coating removers may react with aluminum. Therefore, immediately after removing the film, it is necessary to thoroughly rinse the disc with neutral liquids (or plain water).
If the disc is scratched or has small chips on it, then the part must be sanded before polishing. This operation becomes unnecessary if the disk is completely intact and has no flaws. The more complex the shape of the internal filling of the disc rim, the more labor-intensive grinding it requires.
It is best to polish discs that do not have many small ridges. For example, grinding a disc to imitate the interweaving of small knitting needles will take a huge amount of time. If there are several knitting needles and they are massive, then the work will go much faster. Certain disk shapes allow them to be turned on a lathe.
It is also useful to read: Basic rules for puttying car body parts
Polishing is carried out with special pastes until a mirror shine is achieved. This operation is performed in a rotational manner. Hard-to-reach places are polished with drills, and the rest - with ordinary polishers with attachments of suitable size and shape.
Painting with acrylic paint
Painting the disc with acrylic paint from a spray can
Acrylic is a more traditional liquid paint, which makes the work much easier. It does not necessarily require the use of specialized equipment, and what is also important is that, unlike powder polymers, only part of the disk can be painted with acrylic if you want to make it multi-colored.
The whole procedure is performed in several stages:
- cleaning the disc from dirt and old paint, which is best done with sandpaper or a drill with a brush attachment;
- puttying all damaged surfaces;
- priming and drying;
- coloring and final drying.
An important advantage of acrylic is the variety of colors available for sale.
It is best to apply acrylic paint from a spray bottle. The optimal effect is achieved by painting in two layers , and the interval between their application should be at least 20 minutes . If desired, you can spray varnish onto the painted disc to achieve a glossy shine.
The varnish coating is not very durable, especially during winter use.
Subtleties of caring for chrome parts
Despite the qualities described above, chrome is a very capricious coating. To prevent loss of shine, scratches or cracks, chrome-painted wheels require proper and careful care.
- In the absence of obvious damage, no special care is required. Regular cleaning with detergent and a soft cloth is sufficient. Please note that the funds used must be inactive, i.e. they should not contain acetone, ammonia, etc. After cleaning with detergents, you need to wash off their traces with clean water and wipe the discs completely dry, which is especially important in winter. Once the rims are washed and cleaned, use a polish to maintain their original appearance and shine.
- If by chance the disc was slightly damaged, then first of all, treat the damaged area with chalk on a clean and dry cloth. Then apply clear varnish to the damaged area. This prevents the destruction of the oxide film around the damage.
- Painting rims in chrome makes the wheels incredibly easily soiled; in order to maintain the attractive appearance of the car, the rims will have to be washed quite often. The most convenient way to do this is to use a gentle stream of water at room temperature. Do not clean the discs under strong pressure of water, otherwise there is a chance of scratching the coating.
- If the dirt has already dried, then under no circumstances should you try to remove it as is: dried sand and dust particles will certainly leave scratches. The correct thing to do in this situation is to wet the wheels with water, wait until the dirt softens and carefully remove it.
Painting the wheel in chrome
Lada Priora wheel is painted chrome
It is impossible to carry out real chrome plating at home using improvised means, but painting with a special paint and varnish composition that imitates chrome is available. These are car paints from the so-called “chrome effect” group. The painting process here is similar to painting with acrylic, only the paint itself is applied in two layers:
- black coating;
- composition simulating chrome.
The most important thing here is to perfectly clean, degrease and polish the wheel rim. In addition, you should buy expensive paint that will actually give the full visual effect of chrome plating. Budget options will be more like metallic gray, without the characteristic mesmerizing shine.
Catalytic chromium plating
This type of wheel finishing is simple to perform, but requires special equipment. The catalytic method involves the alternate application of special substances, which ultimately form a spectacular mirror layer on parts of any geometric complexity. Moreover, the entire process is absolutely safe, since the substances used are non-aggressive, non-toxic and do not contain caustic acids.
Using catalytic chrome plating, a mirror layer can be applied not only to metal, but also to plastic. Thus, you can chrome-plate any elements of the car, including door handles, moldings, and radiator grilles.
At the same time, the catalytic method is inferior in quality to the galvanic method. Any chrome is afraid of reagents scattered on the roads in the cold season, but galvanization in this sense provides a more durable coating. If the discs are chrome-plated by catalysis, then peeling, clouding and even discoloration are possible when exposed to an aggressive environment.
Chrome paint for wheels: a fashion statement or a practical necessity?
It’s easy to make your car unique thanks to modern advances in paint and varnish manufacturers. It is enough to cover the external elements with mirror paint to make the car’s exterior special.
If you need paint for wheels, then liquid chrome is ideal. But the car will look more impressive if you update the paintwork (hereinafter referred to as paintwork) throughout the body. Initially, the effect of a chrome finish could be achieved by plating with the thinnest plates of harmful hexavalent chromium, which was coated with varnish.
Paint with a polished metal effect demonstrates both aesthetic and practical properties. With the help of chrome, the body is reliably protected from aggressive environmental influences.
This combination encourages car users to buy liquid chrome, despite its high cost, which makes the paint popular. For your information, for one hundred grams you will have to pay about 450 rubles or more, and for a liter - from 4 thousand rubles. But for luxury models, the upgrade seems cheap compared to maintenance.
Preparatory work
Immediately before painting, it is necessary to carry out certain preparatory work:
- High quality washing and drying. This is necessary to identify all defects, both on a new part and on one that has already been used.
- Cleaning and filling. These processes are carried out if there is a need to clean all existing problem areas with special sandpaper, the index of which is 100. The sanded surface must be degreased, and all defects should be filled.
- Repairing cracks in varnish. If you are painting a part that has already been used, you should pay special attention to the possible presence of cracks. They can appear if the plastic is strongly bent, where the element itself remains intact, but the varnish cracks. They can only be dealt with through serious troweling processes using coarse sandpaper.
- Primer. If you are painting parts that do not have defects, it is enough to prime it with a regular primer. After drying for 20 minutes, you can begin painting. The primer must be sprayed in a very thin layer to avoid smudges.
You should not carry out the stripping process by hand, since all the unevenness of the spatula will be preserved. It is the use of a plane that makes it possible to completely smooth them out.
Experts recommend combining crosswise hand movements with conventional circular movements for the stripping process. If you don’t have a plane at hand, you can use small pieces of very dense rubber, the size of which is approximately the size of your palm.
How to choose auto enamel for wheels?
Recently, paints that imitate chrome or gold plating have become popular. It is very important that the painted wheels look harmonious in relation to the rest of the car’s exterior elements and, of course, in relation to each other. For example, if chrome paint is selected, it should have the same color intensity and shine on all wheels.
When choosing paint for alloy wheels, you need to focus on its quality and buy products from well-known manufacturers, because low-quality paint will not last long, especially since the wheels experience enormous loads and need reliable protection.
It is important to purchase spray paint from the same batch, because the slightest inconsistencies in shades will ruin the entire impression and reduce your efforts to zero.
How to paint a chrome surface without the paint coming off?
Good afternoon. As you may have guessed from the title, this article is about how to paint a chrome surface. The main difficulty when painting chrome is its low adhesion to any surface coating; therefore, the paint simply does not stick to it, and after drying it falls off in flakes.
You will need:
- sandpaper with numbers 240 (sometimes I skip it) - 360 - 500 - 600 (under the primer is quite enough) - 800 - 1000. The amount of sandpaper depends on the area of the surface to be painted.
— primer (we have a separate article on the choice of primers on our website).
— we sand sequentially in numbers from smallest to largest.
- degrease with silicone remover
— dry the soil and matte it 360-500-600-800-1000
We are collecting... We just saved a couple of thousand rubles.
When painting chrome-plated plastic using this method, it is possible that the chrome layer peels off from the plastic, and the paint peels off accordingly... The likelihood of this is not high, but for plastic, it is preferable to use the second method.
The method is only suitable for plastic.
You'll need:
- a container into which the part fits completely
- sandpaper with numbers 360 - 500 - 600 (for primer is quite enough). The amount of sandpaper depends on the area of the surface to be painted.
— primer (we have a separate article on the choice of primers on our website).
Sequencing:
- dilute ferric chloride (I used 200 grams per liter of water, the higher the concentration of the solution, the faster the etching occurs).
— we lower the part into the solution and wait until all the coating comes off.
— matte the plastic with sandpaper with a mark number of 360-500 (if you are too lazy to matte, you can use an adhesion enhancer for plastic, but the practice of its use is questionable).
- degrease with silicone remover.
— dry the soil and matte it 360-500-600-800-1000
Attention - if you paint chrome using the method proposed in this article and subsequently, you will need to return the chrome coating, you will have to re-chrome the whole thing, or change it if the chrome is applied to plastic. As you can see, it is not very difficult to paint a chrome-plated part with high quality, and if everything is done according to the technology, the paint on chrome will stick no worse than on ordinary iron
As you can see, it is not very difficult to paint a chrome-plated part with high quality, and if everything is done according to the technology, the paint on chrome will stick no worse than on ordinary iron.
If you have any questions about painting chrome or want to share your own experience, leave a comment.
Which paint do you prefer?
Currently, manufacturers offer such a wide selection of paint that it is quite easy for an inexperienced car owner to get confused at the sight of such abundance. The wheels can be painted in golden or silver tones, and even coated with chrome.
Typically, two types of paint are used to paint wheel rims: acrylic and powder. Each of them has its own characteristics that must be taken into account.
Acrylic coating is inferior in quality to powder coating, but has a number of undeniable advantages, in particular:
- This type of paint in cans (chrome, metallic and other colors) is easy to use and allows you to quickly get the desired result;
- The color palette of acrylic paints is much wider than that of powder paints, which allows you to choose the most optimal option.
Powder paints have the following features:
- they have high performance characteristics and are resistant to moisture and mechanical damage to the coating;
- Powder coating protects the discs from the negative effects of external factors and provides excellent anti-corrosion treatment.
The only drawback of powder paint is that it requires very expensive equipment to use.
What tools and materials may be required
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To carry out the process of painting parts in chrome, you need to prepare the following tools:
- Special technical hair dryer;
- Spatulas;
- Spray;
- Planers for efficient stripping.
As for materials, painting plastic in chrome may require not only the paint itself, but also special acrylic varnish, primer, sandpaper, anti-silicone, solvent, putty, antistatic wipes and pieces of material.
Preparing for painting
Painting wheels both in a car service center and at home is essentially the same. To begin with, preparations are made for staining; it consists of the following steps:
- The first step is to remove the tires from the wheels. After this, the discs must be thoroughly cleaned of dirt and washed with car shampoo.
- After removing contaminants, the discs must be examined for defects: dents, scratches, chips.
- All existing problem areas must be thoroughly sanded, and then the surface must be degreased.
- Deep cracks and scratches must be filled with putty and, after complete drying, cleaned with sandpaper.
After completing all operations, the disk is degreased again and hung on a wire.
Do-it-yourself chrome plating
Today there are many ways in which every car enthusiast can distinguish his vehicle from the gray mass of cars on the road.
One of the most affordable and popular is chrome plating of alloy wheels - applying a special coating to a car that helps create a mirror effect with a silver or gold tint. This tuning has been popular for many years, making it a classic. This decoration for car rims not only looks great on any car, but also protects the rims from corrosion and various types of damage.
Chrome wheels on a car
Among the advantages of chrome coating, experts and car enthusiasts highlight:
- providing a mirror effect;
- protection from damage and rust;
- resistance of disks to weather changes;
- possibility of painting with your own hands;
- relative price availability of materials.
Chrome plating allows alloy wheels not to be afraid of temperature changes when the brakes heat up. However, it is worth remembering that some types of chrome are quite expensive and require re-application to the part if even one scratch appears on them.
When choosing chrome parts, a car enthusiast needs to make a decision: paint existing products or buy ready-made ones. When purchasing, everything is simple: purchase it, put tires on the rim. There are several methods of coloring.
Chrome wheels on a car
Color palette of chrome paints
Colorists have learned to mix chrome with various pigments, so getting paints of different shades with a mirror effect is not a problem. The most popular pigments are silver and gold. But there are also other colors: red, blue, cyan, green, purple.
The coating applies to both metal, plastic and glass. In this case, a high degree of adhesion is achieved.
But you can also get the chrome effect using:
- films;
- electroplating;
- catalytic technology;
- electrochemical technology.
Depending on the method of painting a car with chrome, the price will differ slightly. But we must not forget about the qualitative characteristics of each method.
The use of the electrochemical method is expensive. This involves the use of a nickel base followed by the deposition of chromium under electrolytic action.
To make a car shine like an ingot of silver or gold, it is processed using galvanic technology. With its help, it is possible to double the capabilities of the chrome coating in combination with other metallic shades.
Those who decide to use film instead of liquid chrome as a paint can save a lot on materials. However, this technology is short-lived and significantly inferior in quality. But the “self-adhesive” will protect the paintwork applied to the car in the factory.
For those who decide to paint a car or parts with chrome on their own, you need to familiarize yourself with the technological process. Before it comes to applying the solution, you need to be well prepared for the job. The room where painting procedures will be performed must be perfectly clean, free of dust and drafts.
