Advice buffing wheel lips (tight contours / wetsanding?)

[iamraymond]

Hi All,

I have a set of 3-piece wheels that I have disassembled. I am using a 3/4 hp bench grinder to buff the wheels. I was able to buff the faces with a 6-inch Spiral Sewn wheel and the Brown compound, which I will finish off with the White/Red on Loose Cotton. The faces are fairly simple as there are no tight contours and the surface was relatively flat and already pretty clean.

My problem is with the lips. I have been trying to polish the wheel lips using a 6-inch Spiral Sewn wheel and Black emery. I am having a heck of a time getting into the contours of the lips. I just get manouver the lips around the buffing wheel. Does any one have any tips of getting into the tight areas? Should I buy some small buffs and use a drill/die grinder?

Another option is that I was thinking of giving up on the buffing wheels altogether and start wet sanding with 800, 1000 and 2000 grit. If I do go with wetsanding by hand, can I still go with the Loose cotton with White/Red compound to get the wheels to a mirror finish?

Here are a few pictures of the wheels

[iamraymond]

This is what I'm trying to achieve with the lips.

[CarWiz]

Use a loose buff and stick with the emery. The loose buff has more "give" when working uneven surfaces. Switch to white or SS for the final buff. Don't mix compounds on the same buff unless you can screed them completely. It's easier just to use a separate buff for each compound.

By the way, you did mark and/or index the wheels before disassembling right?

[iamraymond]

I was able to get to all the tight areas last night. I simply needed to remove the bench grinder from the table and put it on a stand. Now I have full access to the wheel.

I was able to polish the faces quite easily, but the lips are still giving me headaches. No matter what I try, I can still see the light scuffs from the buffing pad. I tried wetsanding with 2000 grit and buffing with loose cotton/white, and I still got the same results. I tried both cutting and coloring methods, but the scuffs always remain. It will look terrible when the wheel is reassembled because the wheel faces are polished to an almost mirror finish, but the lips are very dull. Could it be that the wheel centers are fine because they are forged aluminum, whereas the lips are spun aluminum?

I'll try to post some pictures of the lips tonight.

Yes. I did number each piece of the wheels and marked them so I can line them up for reassembly.

[iamraymond]

Here is what I was able to achieve with the wheel centers/faces


Before:


After:

[iamraymond]

Here are some pictures of the lips. You can see that they are quite dull compared to the faces. I can't get these things to shine!

[iamraymond]

[baz]

spun aluminium should give you a bright shine , if they are dull my guess would be that you have some kind of a coating on them ,probably anodizing .

[iamraymond]

The wheels are not coated with any finish (all CCW wheels are raw aluminum unless you request for anodizing). I am actually only having problems with the flat surface of the lips. The rounded parts are easier to get to with the buffer, but I just can't manouver the lips to the flat parts. I think I may end up wetsanding with 2000 grit and polishing with some Mothers Aluminum wheel polish.

Here is a picture to describe what I am talking about. The portion marked Red is very dull with light scratches and the portion marked Green has a brillant shine. I used the exact same process for both parts of the lip (White Compound with Loose Cotton), but I can't get the flat section to shine.

[CarWiz]

It hard to believe that's bare aluminum. Bare aluminum turns white in a mater of days with a little humidity. Did you wash them well before you started? It could have some type of wheel or tire spray that contains silicon. That will hamper any cutting action of polishes. Wash with an ammonia soap and rinse. That or a good wash with lacquer thinner will remove the silicon.

Oh yeah, and wash your buffs too.