strip/polish cast wheels?

I have my very slow going kz1000 project that I hope to put into a much higher gear over this winter so as to have it on the road next summer. Been working out my color scheme and was thinking that the stock cast wheels would look great if I could strip the factory paint off and simple polish up the aluminum. I see lots of bikes where they repaint the wheels in other colors, but have never seen anyone simply go with bare metal and polish. can it be done without years of work or a huge budget?
any ideas?

Aircraft stripper will probably remove the stock paint.

Since mine were going to be repainted, I didn't bother trying to get the wheels to bare metal. I just scuffed up the paint pretty good & used Duplicolor semi-gloss engine enamel (no primer), then baked the wheels in a low temp over to cure. That was several years ago & the paint still looks new w no chips or anything.

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One of the coolest things about polishing Aluminum is that one can do it at their own pace, and at varying levels of investment...You dont HAVE to have a dedicated bench mounted polishing station...Dremels & DeWalt's can do amazing stuff, it just takes longer...Plus one on the aircraft stripper, (although brake fluid would proabably take it off too)...Wet/dry paper up from 800 to 2000 grit...keep it wet, change your water between grits, and, (bonus, bonus!) you can do it on your couch through the Winter to aid in motorcycling withdrawls and sanity retention!

The rims and spoke centrelines polish up great, but the rough casting around the spokes would need some serious amount of flatting, probably all by hand.

As well as the time to poish it, it would be mega high maintenance particulalry the rear wheel. Polished ally needs repolishing every couple of months, laquers tend to dull the finish IIRC.

as mention above.....the painted part of the wheels is rough ( not smooth ) you would need to remove lots of material to have a smooth surface to then polish. lots of work...reason you do not see any around.

He could leave those areas rough & buff them w a nylon wheel or something.
I've seen unpainted wheels that way. Then if the look is unsuitable,
the wheels would be ready for painting, since all the hard work would be done. :laugh:

These wheels were sand blasted & I think they're unpainted. All I know is what the descriptions says.
KZRider Gallery --- 1980 KZ750-Ltd --- 2 photos --- by ldossjr

Martin I think those look like they have been completely painted cast grey or something similar. Like you say though sandblasting or even better glassbeading the unmachined surfaces would be the ticket. then polish the machined areas and a durable clearcoat over the final product would be the way I would go. I personally think the idea is really interesting and I would be interested in seeing the finished wheels.

martin_csr wrote: He could leave those areas rough & buff them w a nylon wheel or something.
I've seen unpainted wheels that way. Then if the look is unsuitable,
the wheels would be ready for painting, since all the hard work would be done. :laugh:

These wheels were sand blasted & I think they're unpainted. All I know is what the descriptions says.
KZRider Gallery --- 1980 KZ750-Ltd --- 2 photos --- by ldossjr

I was thinking they might be painted grey or silver but couldn't tell for sure. It's kinda impressive
that he had all of the chrome parts stripped & redone. I wonder how much that cost. :ohmy:

Durable clear coat on polished ally? nice idea but I'm not sure if there is such aproduct commercially avalable.

There used to be one in UK years ago- 'scientific coatings' but it was taken off the market due to health and safety considerations.

This is feasible, just serious amounts of work to flat the rough cast and keep it mirror polished.

martin_csr wrote: He could leave those areas rough & buff them w a nylon wheel or something.
I've seen unpainted wheels that way. Then if the look is unsuitable,
the wheels would be ready for painting, since all the hard work would be done. :laugh:

This was more what I was thinking... but then just buff/polish the textured areas to a high gloss as well.
A good CnC machine could be programed to mill off all the textured areas...but that's just dreaming....

Just freshened mine up first time since 1982. Cleaned the alum. with Flitz and painted with rust-olem gloss black.

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