Painting rims

I've got silver rims that I want to paint gunmetal. Does anybody have a DIY for this? Or has anybody done it themselves and can tell me what kinda paint to get and so forth. I want my Axis Sevens to look like the ones in this pic on the car to the right:
http://images.cardomain.com/member_img_a/110000-110999/110935_6_full.jpg


Thanks.

nice
thanks for sharing!!:dogpile:

Damn. I'm don't have a login for that forum and the register link is dead! O well.

some auto/painting shops also do wheel customization. a girl around here had her rims dipped black and they came out great. there's also different colored power-coating. try looking up local automotive places and question them. your rims would look so nice as a dark color!!

I think your only option, if your mind is really set in getting it done, is to get it professionally finished, like by a wheel anodizer.

Not here to change your mind or anything, just to share a friends past experience when he opted to do the same on his rims.

There are several negative aspects in doing it yourself, one is preparation time involve in cleaning and prepping the wheels for painting. The other is that painting it alone will not last as long as professionally finished. The painted finished will not protect it from the beating of road debris. Sure it looks good at first, until he took it on the road. You’ll end up with rims full of scratches. :(

He ended up getting the rims done by an expert to correct things, but that too have a downside. The finishing looks beautiful and durable enough to take the regular road beating. Until when it was time to replace one tire, the mounting or the dismount process chipped the finished around the wheel lip/outer edge area that causes a leak when inflated. He needed to get the wheel refinished again just to make it useable once more. :crying:

If you ask my opinion, I'll leave it alone or buy new sets of wheels in color you prefer.

Whatever you decide to do, I wish you GOOD LUCK!

I plan on buying new HRE 545s in anodized black with polished lip at the end of the summer. I will be broke until then because I'm buying an H&R stage 4 coilover suspension kit. I am taking the car to a cheapy paint place to take care of some scratches around the body, I'll ask them and maybe they will give me a good deal.

You can paint them just like a car if you want but I suggest powder coating them. Its really not all that expensive, theres a guy around here that does it for $35 bucks a wheel.

Well...I've been doing some fickle thinking and think I am going to scratch the HRE deal for now, and get these professionally done. I guess it's a good time as I will be replacing the tires in a month or so. I'm guessing that I should get the bald tires dismounted, then have the rims painted....then mount the new tires on? By any chance does anybody know of any good places to do this in the Santa Barbara/Ventura area? If not, what about the North LA area? Another question is the cost...I'm guessing this would be around $200 for all of them, or am I underestimating?

sup.. check out this honda-acura forum page.. i think it might help a bit.
the before / after pics look really good (silver/black) good luck [url]http://www.honda-acura.net/forums/showthread/t-65308.html[/iurl]

sorry the link is http://www.honda-acura.net/forums/showthread/t-65308.html

Look in the phone book for a motorcycle shop and ask them were they get they're stuff powder coated, trust me powder coating isn't gonna cost much more than painting them and its way better for rims.

yea thats true. poweder coating will come out way better than paint any day and should last a hell of alot longer too. You live in california. There should be tons of places that powedercoat.

I painted my rims this Monday actually. I had some old ugly gray Konig Wild Cards. I painted them white. All I did was take each tire off, got some trash bags and masking tape, tape off the tires, used some degreaser, then sanded them. Got some super fast dryingwhite paint (I get a lil impatient when it comes to my Civic, lol) from Advanced auto and some white primer, primed them and painted them. Dried in like 20 minutes after doing 3-4 coats. They look really good actually, until yesterday when my husband tried to back out in it (doesn't know how to drive a stick) and scraped the shit out of one, but... it was easily repaired, blasted it with the spray again. So it cost me... less than $15 to do it myself and easily repaired.

i vote you get them powder coated....