h4nsm0l3m4n Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 I'm rather unsatisfied with the wheels that came with my car. Theyre early NA Z31 wheels and in my opinion do not work with the car very well. I tried looking for a set of 15s but couldnt find anything cheap enough that looked better, and now its too late (I spent my all wheel/tire money on a set of Azenis). Now that I'm stuck maybe someone can help me make them look a little better on my car. Here's a quick photoshop as if I painted them black, I like the look a little better. I havent done much spray painting but I found this tutorial on the interwebs, and it seems easy enough. http://www.clubprotege.com/wil/howto/paintwheels/index.htm Any opinions/ideas/advice on painting my wheels? Thanks! Black Stock Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jknc90 Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 I really like the black Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veritech-z Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 I think it's too much black personally. It's my opinion that spray-painted factory wheels will always look like spray-painted factory wheels-I prefer them to just look normal but clean. A wheel with that much flat space is just begging to get a mural put on it. If that were my car, I'd probably get a bunch of touch up paint and paint some samurai and some oni on there or something. Which incedentally is what i'm doing on my leftover Western Cyclone wheels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeBZ Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 I like black wheels, gives the car a more racy look Maybe leave the outer lip un-painted ? You want to lightly scuff the wheel with fine paper to remove any clear coat or left over polish/cleaner. Otherwise the paint will flake off Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Young Z Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 black with the lip polished. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daeron Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 try painting the inner surfaces (basicallly those five "divots") gold and see how you like them. I LOVE how veritech is just like "Oh, well, just like, paint some badass mural on there, no big deal...look at the canvas you have been given!!" We normal people can't just snap our fingers and summon the Samurai Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drax240z Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 try painting the inner surfaces (basicallly those five "divots") gold and see how you like them. Paint those inner surfaces BLACK and I think you've got something there... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h4nsm0l3m4n Posted June 9, 2009 Author Share Posted June 9, 2009 try painting the inner surfaces (basicallly those five "divots") gold and see how you like them. I LOVE how veritech is just like "Oh, well, just like, paint some badass mural on there, no big deal...look at the canvas you have been given!!" We normal people can't just snap our fingers and summon the Samurai Haha, right. I wish I could do a mural but I couldnt paint a samurai if my life depended on it... I do like most of the comments and ideas though. I think its definitely set my mind on painting the wheels something. Now just to decide on what. I think I'll stick with black color since I know if I screw anything up I can just spray it all black and it will look reasonable. Here's a couple more quick photoshops of various ideas posted, just to give an impression of what it might look like. Black divots with a "polished" center section and lip. Black center with "polished" lip. I know they arent really very polished looking but its just to get a quick impression anyway. Either way my finished product probably wont look anything near as good as my photoshop version haha! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSM Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 The above doesn't look right w/out a lip. Make them black or leave them alone. Try polishing one up. Maybe you will like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jt1 Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 Polish up the wheels, or paint them silver, and paint the cutouts black. That would look best IMO. jt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veritech-z Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 If you look closer, my first advice was just clean them up and call it a day as for doing murals, here's the one i was describing: just regular acrylic paint for the color, detail is from a sharpie pen. This one's destined to be a coffee table in my office, but you get the idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kash Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 "Black divots with a "polished" center section and lip" gets my vote or leave original. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalJack Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 +1 for the black and polished rim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beau M Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Veritech, I think you're on to something there. My vote goes for duplicolor gunmetal wheel paint. Have'nt seen a wheel it looks bad on yet. My truck: My Mustang I had a few years ago: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LowCarbZ Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 IMO to pull off black you've got to have some dish to the outer rim. So my vote would go to something lighter like the Duplicolor Gunmetal with a polished outer lip. Or else the black "divots" with a polished center section looks great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daeron Posted June 11, 2009 Share Posted June 11, 2009 I hate to sound like a Geezer (I'm only 28...) but..... Man!!!!! Whatever happened to gold accents on the silver/metallic colored rims of your red sports car???? Allright, I will stop whining now, sorry. One other point I had to bring up.. My biggest problem with those wheels has always been, four lugs, five "spokes." Awkward, and no paint can change that. If that statement really hits home to you, you might want to think twice about putting much effort into painting them. Now that I think of it, any color scheme you pick out, you have to be able to mask off well. Some schemes will be easier than others. Just saying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veritech-z Posted June 11, 2009 Share Posted June 11, 2009 In terms of bang-for-the-buck time spent, I have to say i'm getting on board the clean center section, painted accent train. I think a gold/bronze color would look very nice, in fact i'm 100% sure I've seen that wheel in that color configuration on a Z31 at some point. The charcoal/gunmetal color is very clean also. Leaving a "polished lip" on that wheel would look contrived, since it's so high offset and clearly isn't a distinct lip. I think it would get old for you after awhile. If these are temporary wheels, maybe you should make them as unnatractive as possible to motivate you to replace them? just a thought... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h4nsm0l3m4n Posted June 11, 2009 Author Share Posted June 11, 2009 Thanks for all the ideas guys. Its so hard to decide, I still cant make up my mind. What I was thinking of doing is painting them in stages. I'd take two wheels and paint the accents, and see how that looks. If I dont like that I'll move on and paint the center section, leaving just the lip. Finally if that doesnt work I'll paint the whole rim, which should look reasonable no matter how it turns out (I hope). This is probably the main reason I want to use black, or some other dark color. But I do think gold/bronze might look nice for the accents, I'll have to consult photoshop on this. As far as masking. Yeah I can see it being a pain. I've done quite a bit of masking for when I painted RC car bodies back in the day. I'm hoping its not too much different. Although it brings up an interesting thought. Aside from masking tape, when painting RC car bodies people rely heavily on liquid masking film such as this: http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXC101&P=ML You basically brush on several layers of the stuff and then cut out what you want to paint with an exacto knife.This might be a stupid thought but could I use this stuff on metal? If so it would make things a lot easier. Its too bad I dont have any lying around to test. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shika805 Posted June 11, 2009 Share Posted June 11, 2009 IMO to pull off black you've got to have some dish to the outer rim. So my vote would go to something lighter like the Duplicolor Gunmetal with a polished outer lip. Or else the black "divots" with a polished center section looks great. agreed! if you gonna go black... the gunmetal aint that bad either, dont know how it will look like with the red tone of your car??? whatever you choose just take your time with it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daeron Posted June 13, 2009 Share Posted June 13, 2009 Wow that masking goop looks awesome!!! I've always done something similar using grease or some sort of ointment (whatever was handy, vaseline is the standard) when painting fishing lures. a spot of neosporin or something out of a tube makes a perfect masking for an "eyeball" before spraypainting. I can't imagine it would be problematic, but then again, one would think it would be much more widespread if you *could* use it on a car, so who knows... not I! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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