I'm still bouncing back & forth on wheels I'll be running on my project truck... was originally thinking a set of Ansen Sprints... if the guy calls me back, I'll have scored a set of 15" X 10" sprints from the 60's... the wheels for the fronts are newer & polished... ... I'm thinking of media blasting the 2 sets, so they match... cleaning up the old set, & depolishing the newer set... I assume some of you guys have done both... is there a process that's worked well for you??? ( type or grit of media ??? ) if I can't get a pair of 10" Sprints for a diecent price, I may pick up 4 new Mickey Thompson wheels, that they are blowing out super cheap ( look kinda similar to the sprints, but are fully polished ) my media blaster thinks I'd be crazy taking the polish off those, but I'm not after a street rod look, & if I can make them look older I'd prefer that, if I have to go that route... anyone else done that ??? I'd rather have the vintage Sprints, but since they quit making the 10" the prices on those have gone up, & I can buy a set of 4 new wheels cheaper than I can buy 2 - 10" sprints right now
Submersing polished aluminum in muriatic acid, (for VERY short amounts of time), will cause the aluminum to turn a nice magnesium color...
I wonder If I could spray it on ( I have some commercial acid proof spray bottles ) none of the sand blast guys up this morning, or isn't it advisable to media blast aluminum wheels ???
I just recently went through something similar. I had a pair of polished ET Supers in 15x6 and a pair of unpolished 15x8.5s that I blasted in a buddy's blast cabinet. The media was garnet that was pretty old, but it did a great job knocking off the paint off of the 15x8.5s. I thought that it would rough-up the 15x6s to more resemble the surface finish of the rear wheels, but it really didn't. I painted all four wheels, and the fronts turned out beautiful. The rears look good, but a lot more of the casting irregularities showed through because they had never been polished. The wheels were painted a light charcoal with a lot of metallic, and that helped disguise the difference between the fronts and rears. Your Sprints might turn out a little different because they were pretty smooth from the factory, unlike the 5-spoke wheels, which were pretty rough.
Just make sure you aren't using ferrous based media or you will end up with rusty spots on your aluminum.
A recent article in the August 2012 issue of Street Rodder talked of how Foose and Chris Andrews used Easy-Off oven cleaner to age parts of his deuce coupe. I tried it on some aluminum plate I had lying around and, with several applications using different spray patterns and thicknesses, it did give it a nice, aged patina look. Might be something worth investigating if you've got some aluminum to practice on.
I have restored a number of the D200-s Americans and also ET-II's. The spokes on one set had been completely polished out. I had them media blasted and they came out really good. They had the "as cast" original look. Sam
I like the media blasted but Ansens are supposed to be polished. Egle brand mag wheel cleaner for uncoated wheels is muratic acid I believe. it is cheap, when you soak them good and follow the instructions they will leave a mildly rough surface and bleach them out white. if you then leave them alone just hosing them occaisionally when they are dirty they will assume a magnesuim of titanuim color.
I have some old pickup truck aluminum wheels I wanted to use on a trailer. What is the best thing to strip off the peeling clear coat? I planned on trying to polish them but will probably end up painting them (they are pretty corroded in spots)
Don't laugh but try salt water! Every time i change the water in my salt water reef i dump it out back on stuff that i want to patina, works awesome on aluminum...
How about Dow 7 for that vintage mag look. Theres a metal finisher near chicago that does the process. PM me if ya want it.
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