Wheel crud...

[KatanaJim]

Does anyone know a good way to polish wheels? I have polished the lip of the wheels and left the spokes painted. I have sanded, scotchbrited and simichromed the sh!t out of them, but I still get these areas that look crappy, on them. Kind of like corrosion in the aluminum. Anybody got any tips?

[The CyberPoet]

Aluminum oxides whenever it's exposed to oxygen. If you've ever seen an aluminum shed, trailer, boat fixture or window frame, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Oxidized aluminum is black by nature, but may take a white appearance on if it traps minerals in it (like calcium or lime from local water supplies). In contact with water, the oxygen in the water accelerates the process.

The problem is that first sentence of the first paragraph. How can you possibly get down to fresh aluminum without exposing it to air, which contains oxygen? The only way is to use special polishing compounds that are designed to shield the metal even after you remove the compound (leave behind a plasticine layer for example)... but even this only works for a short while because wheels get a lot of contact with dust, dirt, water, road spray, etc. So the next step is to coat the plasticine-coated, freshly polished aluminum with something thicker that will take that abuse and continue to keep oxygen away...

Or you can go a whole different route, and get the wheels anodized (which is controlled oxidation -- add in other minerals and you get different colors instead of black) or powder-coated (effectively spraying a plastic powder over it and then melting that powder on), painting them (powder-coating is better than paint for this use), or the last option, getting them chromed or otherwise plated (bonding a different metal to the outside of the aluminum, something that retains a shine and can handle oxygen without immediately going to pot).

Good Luck!
=-= The CyberPoet

[SL1D3R]

Thanks. I need to do this, too.