Painting monster truck wheels?

[Mad Ax]

I've decided it'll probably be cheaper to paint my Blackfoot Extreme wheels than to buy some chrome ones.  There seems to be a stock shortage of original wheels on ebay at the mo, and aftermarket 2.2s are just stupidly expensive (unless anyone can recommend a good supplier of chrome-plastic monster truck wheels?)

Anyhoo, first up - I need to detatch tyres from rims without ruining the tyres.  What's a good way to get rid of instant glue?  (It was 2nd hand, so I'm not sure what glue was used).

Then I need to clean them thoroughly (they got filthy last weekend).

Then - do I need to prime them?  What's a good primer that will get coverage right inside the rims where I can't sand the surface?

Similarly - what paint?  I'm guessing and tamiya hardbody spray would be good, although the wheels seem to be a slightly different plastic to ABS shells...

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[kontemax]

To remove the tires you can try to boil the wheels for some seconds then try to take away the rubber from the plastic. Cyano glue don't resist to hi temperatures.  Doing this work dive the tires averytime the glue seems strong. At the end clean the rims with a little file. This will prepare the rims for the next glue. To paint the plastic I suggest to use PS spray can. Polycarbon paint fixes also excellent on the plastic and flexes. Ant the rims flex. If you use normal paint for ABS probably after the first use it peels off.

Cheers

MAx 

[Mad Ax]

Cheers for that - I've got some of that nice chrome-effect lexan spray, I'll give that stuff a try saves buying more paint...

[Bluefoot]

Spray a test patch on a piece of plastic first - the "chrome" paint is likely to look more like "alloy". That's not necessarily a bad thing. I did two of my Blackfoots using Plasticote "Chrome" and they came out like this:

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...435&id=2193

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...564&id=2193

Bear in mind that spraying with this type of paint will highlight any blemishes.

[necronomicon]

Hi

I painted my wifes blackfoot wheels, a good base for plastic is spray on 'plastic primer', for real car spoilers etc, which is more like an adhesive base really and flexible. It says on the can it is for ABS/ most hard plastics etc. Once that is on, then car body spray perhaps, or even enamel from a tin. I wouldn't think wheels would flex very much (!), but the paint surface needs to be hard to resist scuffing, so a layer of varnish would help. remember to take your time and allow spray paint layers time to cure in between coats.

hope that helps

neil

[Guest sk8te-penguin]

you are supposed to use black to back the colour on lexan shells so i think for hard bodies or wheels you should spray the wheels black first then chrome. i think that will make them look chrome instead of ally-like. it should work because it works on lexan shells.

[DJTheo]

I did that using Tamiya PS lexan sprays, first black and then anodized alu and it adheres very well, no damages after running yet, but the Tamiya paint is and is supposed to be alu, not chrome, still I preffer alu then chrome look wheels.

Cheers