2008.5 speed3 wheel colour on a 2007 wheel

[PoSaiDoN]

Well what the title says, anyone know how to make you speed3 wheels look like the dark gunmetal look on a 2008.5

They look translucent almost

http://image.motortrend.com/f/9468010+w786+ar1/112_0610_09z+2007_mazdaspeed3+front_left_wheel.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3314/4614227424_48aaf6b01c.jpg

[stevenma188]

That's the Shinka finish. Lot's of people have tried to duplicate it, without complete success (as far as I know). If you search here or on Google, lots of stuff will turn up.

[Mr Wilson]

There is a thread on here with some info. Some place in the States I think had the closest finish by painting (was on a set of BMW MZ3 wheels).

[boyracer]

that sure would be a nice look

[SonicBoy]

The general term for the finish is called Hyper Silver. Basically the wheel is painted with a base coat of black then several layers of a translucent silver is painted then a clear coat.

It's not easy to duplicate but I believe Nigel at Rim Techniques does it. Not gonna be cheap though. I think he quotted me something like $200 - $300 per wheel due to the cost of the materials.

[PoSaiDoN]

Holy macoronie !!!! $$$

[Harbour Rat]

I've had good luck creating realistic looking faux metal finishes on 1:48 model aircraft parts using various colours of base coats (silver, black, blue, copper, gold etc) and rubbing graphite and/or molybdenum disulphide into the paint when it is almost dry. It takes some practice and you have to time it just right so you do it while the paint is still soft enough for the powder to embed into the surface, but cured enough that you can polish it up to a nice sheen. Most often I use Future acrylic floor polish as a sealer, but sometimes Tamiya clear acrylic model paint. Some of the tinted, translucent paints work well too, like Tamiya's Smoke, clear blue, red, green, and Testor's manganese brown metallic with graphite and moly burnished in yields very a effective looking burnt metal look on exhausts, both for piston and jet engine aircraft. Graphite and/or moly powder can be polished into a coat of the clear to add interesting depth effects, then a final coat of clear added for protection.

It works well on small model airplane parts but I expect you'd have a fairly short window to work on something as big as a car wheel. But maybe with a power buffer you could still burnish the powder(s) into the paint when it is more fully cured? For $20-50 bucks you could by some silver, gold, blue, copper or whatever cans of paint, a little tube of graphite powder and an aerosol can of moly dry film lube and a bottle of floor polish at CTC and do some experiments to see if you can come up with a look you like. I seriously doubt the Tamiya or Testor's model paints are weather proof so you'd need to find suitable outdoor paints. Future floor polish is pretty tough and UV resistant but I don't know how well it would hold up outside. I do recommend a water based acrylic for at least the first couple of sealer coats though as anything solvent based will destroy the polished/burnished faux metal sheen you worked so hard to achieve. Trust me on this.

[PoSaiDoN]

Thank you soooo much for the amazing post harbor rat !!!! Im sure we can all learn from this tip moucho gracias amigo !!