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Painting Rostyle wheels??

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79MGB16

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I have finally reached the time when I need to paint my wheels. I saw a kit, but it was like $60(includes 5 masks, and paint), but I would have to send for it. I have also seen a plastic mask, but it seems to be unavailable now. Is there any other options, or should I just buy paint from the auto parts store and go for it? Also, anyone have any tips from when they painted their wheels.

Thanks
Robert
 
I first painted my wheels last summer using the plastic mask. The mask did not seal very tight. I ended up repainting them using masking tape. It came out much better.
patriot.gif
 
The one piece plastic mask is junk , don't waste your money on one. I tried it and ended up sandblasting them and doing it by hand.I spray painted the whole wheel the correct shade of silver then painted the black with a brush.Turned out great. good luck!
Warren
canpatriot.gif
 
Here's another vote for masking tape and an Xacto knofe. It makes life a lot easier if you have the wheels blasted first, as well.
Jeff
 
I remember painting my Rostyles about 1977 in an apartment in Chattanooga. Carried them up from the parking lot, one at a time, let just enough air out of the tires to get some newspaper under the rim, cut the masking tape with a single edge razor blade....

Just this year I bought the plastic mask from Moss expecting to do the job in an afternoon. You mean it doesn't work???!!!
 
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Frazier:


Just this year I bought the plastic mask from Moss expecting to do the job in an afternoon. You mean it doesn't work???!!!<hr></blockquote>

not that I've heard of
 
Another vote for tape and razor. The mask is a joke sold to people who haven't been let in on the punchline. When I did mine, I painted the black then went back and did the silver, but I guess others do the silver first. Not sure it matters, honestly.
 
I've always used the tape and razor method, but have seen ONE example of when the mask worked; the guy weighted the mask down with lugnuts. It was as good as any I have done with tape. Conventional wisdom is that the mask does not work.
 
I imagine magnets would work better than lugnuts, but I still don't know if that would make the plastic mask worth the effort...
 
I just painted the wheels on my old Midget all black, without even taking them off the car. The all black wheel look, ten years before it was cool!
-William
 
I painted the Rostyles on my racer the way I do all my old cars. Even the race-van has wheels painted this way.
I paint the entire center semi-flat black and the rims flat-silver. Easy and simple, and, I think, looks decent. I started doing this 30 years ago. UPS trucks have this same feature (I think they copied me!)
You can kind of see the appearance of this on the van and Sprite in this photo:

https://www.ccm.edu/engtech/stepvan.jpg

[ 02-11-2004: Message edited by: aeronca65t ]</p>
 
Here's my story -

Wanted to paint the Rostyles, but wanted to have them sandblasted first. Local Metal Cleaner shop wanted 20/wheel for sandblasting, but said they would sandblast AND powdercoat for 30/wheel. While they could not powder coat using 2 colors, I elected to have them coated sliver/grey. The looked GREAT! Next, I sut up a Scotch-Brite pad into small squares, and roughed up the surfaces that I wanted to paint black. You do need to do a thouough job gere...knocking all of the glaze off and creating a good base. Next, mask off the area with take, using an exacto knife for the curves. I used a Duplicolor flat balck primer followed by Duplicolor Semi-Flat, and it looks great!
 
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