What do you guys say the right color is for the H wheels? Gloss black? or Semi gloss black?
I have seen them both ways on some very nice A 12's.

Gloss black IMO.....and in a year of driving them through all kinds of conditions like snow and grime the will be that nice semi-gloss some think they should be. So paint them high gloss and it's a win-win

On my 69 car with factory black wheels, the build sheet under wheel says "X9".

X9 was the 69 Black Velvet exterior body color which was a gloss. So X9 Black Velvet gloss should be correct, unless your build sheet says something else.

Regardless of what the paint was originally called, the wheels did not appear as "glossy" as the exterior of a black car.

Okay. Gloss black it is. Thanks

Here is the inside of an original 5-14-69 H-wheel. I had the redline tire (never on the ground) removed two years ago. It looks pretty glossy to me

Looks semi-gloss to me.

Do you think that sheen would look acceptable on the car's sheetmetal?

before prep

Once again, regardless of what the paint was originally called, black wheels do not APPEAR to be gloss black.

All BLACK wheels left the factory with a light coat applied directly over the raw steel.

As far as I know, BODY COLOR wheels (other than black) were treated to a second coat of matching paint over the black base coat. This base coat acted like sealer, resulting in a higher gloss finish.

Talk about deja vu! https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/show...e=0#Post7406447


Same people, same comments...


Dave

I think there are a couple of items regarging the painting of wheels that most people don't understand:

1. Most if not all components that were painted in the factory were treated through a Phosphate System to clean the metal with Detergents and treat it with a phosphate coating to help inhibit rust. This process turns the metal from a bright shiny - "Raw" Steel appearance to a dull gray appearance. It also etches the metal for better paint adhesion. This is not what most of us hobbyists do when we paint parts at home. We generally prime then paint. However DuPont used to have a Product that you could treat bare steel with that would do essentially the same thing as the factory Phosphate Process. It would leave the metal dull gray and etch it for better paint adhesion.

2. The major reason you did not get the high gloss finish on the wheels was the fact that the paint was applied at a lower film build thickness and subsequently was not "Wet Out sufficiently" when sprayed to gloss up like the outer body was. This was due in part to the fact that they only got one coat of color paint, Compared to the bodies getting 2 or more coats applied wet on wet in the spray booths. The photos from the home sprayed wheels in a post above, where they used Rattle Can" paint is a great illustration of getting sufficient film thickness to get maximum gloss from the paint sprayed. You have to understand in most assembly plant applications back in the late 60's and through the 70's, those wheels were painted on a sub-assembly conveyor at the rate of about 60 jobs per hour, so as they went by they were either hand painted or had a stationary Automatic Spray application with enough paint sprayed to get color on them and be shiny, but they were not subject to the same appearance standards as the outer body of the car was. Subsequently they were not as glossy as the primed, sanded and prepped bodies were back then.

You can probably run a test at home yourself by spraying a bare metal panel with a light coat application and then spary another one with a couple of "Wet coat" applications. then take a look at the difference of the gloss when they are dry. My money is on the one with multiple wet coats having a much higher gloss that the single coat lower film build panel.

Hopefully this will shed some light on the reason the wheels did not shine or were not as glossy as the body was, even though they had the same paint used on both the body and wheels.



Bogusracer - 38 years and counting in Paint applications in an Auto Assembly Plant.

Quote:

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Hopefully this will shed some light on the reason the wheels did not shine or were not as glossy as the body was, even though they had the same paint used on both the body and wheels.

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and as I said use gloss black X9 body paint and paint them like they would have been painted in 1969 and they will look somewhat glossy on the showroom then semi-gloss later....but the bottom line IMO they should be painted with the same percent shine (gloss) gloss black body paint first.


(Don't worry this has been going on for decades and will keep going on, wish they would have just put full wheel covers on the A12 or painted them body color like one of the protos )

Yes, you will get the same comments from the same people if you ask the same people the same question.

Once again, yes, you will get a semi-gloss finish if you spray a light coat of gloss paint over bare steel.