DIY aluminum wheel refinishing

[TWFAUST at aol.com]

Eastwoodcompany.com

they have wheel refinishing kits, sandblasting products, and
everything else you may need, not to mention the old favorite, "home
powdercoating kit" that will really starch the wife's shorts if you
try it if you use the oven in the kitchen... :)

I used glass bead when I re-did my BBS wheels for my GLI...


Never one to do things by half measures, I found that brake lathes are 
essentially free. No one uses them any more, rotors are too cheap. I picked one up 
for cartage. I use that for wheel refinishing. Spinning the wheel takes all of 
the effort out of it. I can even cut the edges for the machined look. That 
takes a little effort as the brake knife only wants to cut in a single plane, 
there is usually some curvature to the rim edge.

Since machine shops are starving I suspect, that with a little shopping, you 
could get the edges re-cut for a very agreeable price. I suppose that is one 
of the advantages of industry fleeing to the far east. I am having the trim on 
my '64 Plymouth redone by a local metal finishing company. They tell me that 
in 1995 they had 435 competitors in New England. Now it is 28. In '95 I am sure 
he would have laughed at a $100.00 job.

They had another large industrial equipment auction here the other day, it 
seems like a weekly event. I have always wanted a vertical milling machine, but, 
I lost my nerve. They just closed the "industrial arts" section of my local 
voke school. They were down to one machinist student.

Tom Faust