I'm just looking for some info on restoring a rimblow wheel. I'm going to try and do it my self and save some money. The rimblow I'm using has pitted spokes so I'm sanding the spokes nice and smooth and now I'm now looking for a silver paint that would look nice on the spokes.
Also looking for a good way to put the grain back into the wood after I fill the cracks with the eastwoods epoxy.
My last question is how to paint the wheel?

Here's a for ya.

Curious on what process others have done to save a few $$$.

Ryan



I take it your looking to save a few bucks, who isn't, esp when it comes to steering wheel restos, the guys that do it full time, spend hours apon hours mapping out the grain, and it's uniqueness, nevermind etching it in, plus any repairs, replating,fabrication, etc...I've been doing steering wheels for decades now, for myself and customers,....your looking to have a nice wheel, on a budget, which you can do,.....I take it you have no interest in replating the spokes, the pits are pretty deep, so your gonna have to break out the sandpaper and elbow grease wether you replate or not, your gonna remove the original plate sanding, if you want to try and reproduce the brushed look, after you've sanded the spokes to a 400-600 grit finish, with no scars/scrathces, use a peice of red scotchbrite, or green, or gray, depending on what brush finish you desire, bolt the wheel flat to a bench, use a peice of wood, like a thick popsicle stick, wrap it once with the grade scotchbrite you intend on using and pull it across the spoke, starting from the rim, ending in the center, keep "brushing" the spoke slowly, and with pressure, maintaing a straight pull, untill you've acheived the brushed score you want, you can repeat this process after it's been replated, or if you want,or seal it in Eastwoods Nilac clear spray, so the steel won't start surface rusting, put the wheel away for the spokes to cure, if you cleared them, use the Nilac, as it's geared for raw metal, cheap clear will peel/dull/yellow after a while......then carefully wrap up the spoke center, tapeing off very thoughly at the spokes where they met the plastic rim, don't need to make a mess of the spokes after finishing them,.....Now I usually address the rim, your doing the blowrim, the back half will be painted black, if your going stock?..if there's any big nicks/cracks, I usually fill with JB weld, if you have cracks or seperations in the wheel, these are tricky to adress, for seperations I dress or taper back the damage for filling, you need to make the repair look like a natural graining in the wood, not a band, or plug of filler, so you need to actually increase the size of the damaged area, to spred it out along the grain of the wheel, in an arch shape matching the wheel, so that you can hide the repair,.......after you have carved out the damage area, fill it with JB weld, make sure the plastic is clean, dust free, any main rim steelcore band is scraped raw, apply the JB, allow a few days for curing, cut it down below the surface of the outer plastic rim,sand out the rest of the rim with 150 grit paper, lightly, just a little so that you can apply another filler layer, a very thin layer of polyester filler made by USC, known as Duraglass, usually comes in a white can, when mixed with it's white hardner it stays green,...no good, pick up a tube of blue hardner, that will turn it brown, by varing the amount of blue and white hardner with the green Duraglass filler, you can match the rims exsisting brown shade, so that you can hide the repaired areas, after some trial and error, you feel that the repairs are to your satisfaction, you can decide what grain pattern you want to apply to the wheel,if your wheel was in "readable" shape before you started, make a map of what the grain was, and reproduce it, or make your own pattern, I use a variety of items to score the plastic rim, from peices of hacksaw blades, sawzall blades, razor blades, to coarse thick wire wheels mounted in dremels, to plenty of homemade etching tools, the etching, or carving of the rin takes some time, depending on your pattern, after your done, lightly sand it smooth, to make the new grain you've carved pop, paint the rim with a flat black paint, let it dry for a few minutes, then using a rag, like a T-shirt carefully wipe down the wheel with lacquer thinner, this will remove the black from the rim, but leave it in the grain, on the blowrim wheel, you can leave the black on the backside, wipeing off just the woodgrain face, to color the wood, I use Minwax furniture stain, not gel, WOODSTAIN, I buy a few of the tiny pint cans, (Special Walnut) is my woodstain color of choice, I look for the cans that when opened have settlement on the bottom, I drain off the liquid, and use the thick paste on the bottom,so don't shake or stir the cans,... you have to add some of the liquid to make it brushable, brush on 1 coat quickly, let it dry a few days, if it needs to be darker, brush on another coat quickly, don't play with it, as it will reactivate the first coat,....nowif the woodgrain looks desirable, the black in the grain will show thru the transparencey of the woodstain, using 1/8 masking tape, tape off the outer polished band that seperates the woodgrain from the black back half, remember you must be gentle with the wheel, until you have clearcoated it,....clearcoating, again your choice, premimum CC, gun sprayed sanded and hand polished, spray can Nilac,...there's also flat spraycan clears, if you don't want any gloss, I'd recommend the SEM line of plastic clears, Gloss, stain, low sheen, flat,...your choice...all depends on how much effort/money you want to invest,.....as far as the outer polished 1/8" band if it intact, you can polish it out before you start on the wheel, then tape it off as you go thru the various processes, or if you want to change it's color, just apply custom pinstripe tape,...3M also has an 1/8" chrome tape to reproduce a missing band, if you can't repro your own metal band, if you use the tape, put it on before you apply a FEW coats of clear to "lock" it in, so that you don't palm it off later steering the car,.......you can write a book, as to all the different methods to restore a wheel, everyone has there own secrets/tricks/methods,...all that matters in the end, is it looks like a quality peice, and if you can say you did it yourself, and for just a few bucks,..... it's that much better,....if you have a "junk" wheel to practice on, try your hand at that first, to develope a feeling, for what is needed


Mike




I tried to keep it short


I don't know how well this pic looks on YOUR screen?,....but this finished wheel in my Daytona, before I started with it, was a peice of junk that was given to me free, the spokes were, rusted/pitted, the wheel had more cracks in it than the San Andreas faultline! there wasn't one hint of grain on the thing, it was really junk,the guy was gonna toss it, but I wasn't going to pay, at the time $400-$1000 for a "nice" wood wheel,....so free was good!

something to keep in mind, no matter how good or bad it is, it's going to be in your face every second your in the car.
So make sure your happy with it, or your never going to be happy with it

It's like I told my body guy who did the challenger.
The left side of the hood and top of the drivers fender as well as the drivers rear quarter HAVE to be PERFECT

Nice info there Mike, I'm currently doing the woodgrain wheel for my 70 Bee. My spokes were not too bad in fact I'm not planning to do anything with them, but my rim was horrible. Cracked in many places and well worn, I ended up grinding it down and building it back up again with figerglass. I'll soon be to the point where I'm scratching in some woodgrain...can't wait to start.

good info, like they say..the wheel is in your hands and face every time u are in the car...the hardest part will be the electrical switch installation and the wire attachment...spend that money on buying a switch and try to install it and ruin it...and u will end up buying another till u get it right.....at 125.00 a pop it will cost u alot to practice....but good luck it's a nice winter project...I tried, ended up sending it out....happy with both wheels from different vendors....had to compare...

Thanks for the detailed info Mike.

The paint you need for the spokes is called PPG Metal Finish. It's over $200 a quart plus you have to use their $100 reducer. Then you have to clear it. It's not cheap but it is worth it. Refinishing the spokes is very similar to any typical body work. Any scratches, pitting etc. must be removed or filled, prime, block, paint, clear. Let dry for several days before masking.

Here are the steps you need to take, in order: First Remove the old rimblow switch. Clean out the groove. It must be 5/16 inch wide and the recessed areas must be clean. Clean the wheel with some good plastic cleaner. Don't use lacquer thinner as it will melt the plastic. Sand the entire rim with 320 grit. Clean out any cracks, cut out to have room for your repair material. Clean the crack again with plastic cleaner. Fill with your material, let dry per manufacturers recommendation, sand level. Cut your desired grain in. Mask off woodgrain and spokes. Prime and paint black. Let dry for several days. Unmask woodgrain and finish with color. Install outer chrome pinstriping. Clear woodgrain and stripe together. Install switch and pigtail. Remember that the rimblow switch is very delicate and can be damaged very easily. There is no repairing it once it's damaged. Remove masking from spokes and you're done.

Another thing to keep in mind when you're doing this yourself. Take your time. If you hurry or cut corners, you will be disappointed in the final results. Also, most repair materials you can buy off the shelf usually will not last very long. If you subject your wheel to extreme temperatures, the repaired areas may reappear.

We have the switches, caps etc. for your rimblow or 68-70 woodgrain wheels. If you need any help, let me know. Good luck with your project.

Dave


Painted spoke rimblow wheels.

You guys are the best, thanks so much!!!!!! I'm on a short christmas budget this year and this will save me some money, thanks again for taking the time to help Dave I'm sure my brother will be getting ahold of you to order his cap and switch for the wheel .

Just to keep the flow of information coming I took a couple shots of my wheel tonight. At this point the finish is sanded and shaped fiberglass, I ground the original wheel down nearly to the metal base ring and built it back up from there. Should not crack for a while. Now I'm going to start spraying on some sandable primer to get it nice and smooth. More as I get work done.

There`s some real good tech info here. Could a mod
please put this in the tech archives?

I just called a local PPG dealer and all he could find is this stuff called liquid metal, not sure if this is the same stuff your talking about Dave for the spokes or not? It's about the same price $190 for a quart and then you have to buy the reducer like you said.

Yea, that's it. It's part of the Vibrance line. I've worked with several plating shops over the last few years trying to get that satin chrome finish right but none of them can get it right. Too shiney, too dull, inconsistant sheen, etc. Until then, this is about as close as you're going to get.

Dave


Close-up rimblow painted spokes

Wow that does look really nice! Thanks again!

or seal it in Eastwoods Nilac clear spray

Mike,

Checked Eastwoods site and found no Nilac Clear. Is it listed under another name?

Mark, with my wheel and the many cracks it had originally I was most concerned with it re-cracking after doing a ton of tedious work. The idea for the methodology I used came from Doug Lepak (his username here is "stwheels") who is one of the vendors here who restores steering wheels. He was forthcoming when I asked some questions about how to do a couple things, probably costing him potential business as I consider myself a real do-it-yourselfer and it was pretty obvious I was fishing for info, but Doug said he 'encased' the wheel in carbon fiber cloth. I suspect that he decreased the physical size of the rim with light grinding and filing, then used a very pliable carbon fiber cloth to build the wheel back up. I decided to remove an even greater amount of original material and then build it back up with plain old fiberglass cloth. I just cut it into long strips and slowly built the rim back up. Of course I had removed the metal trim rings/bands to grind the old plastic away, but when I got the wheel built up to the point that they would slide back into position with a little bit of resistance from the fiberglass base I had been building up, I put them back into place on the outside and inside of the rim. Then I simply continued to build up the wheel alongside the trim with more fiberglass, so they are locked solidly into place with no gaps or space adjacent to them. I continued the build-up process until there was adequate material in place to start cutting and filing the wheel back to as close to original shape as I could. It helps if you have a spare wheel available to compare to, so I think I got it really close. Of course this involved cutting the finger grooves into the backside of the wheel and then shaping them, all very tedious and time consuming. If I was in business to restore steering wheels, I probably would not do it this way again but it is probably a one time deal for me and I wanted to be certain the wheel didn't crack at a later date. I would be concerned that simply filling a crack with epoxy, JB Weld or even the material in some of the specific wheel restoration kits would eventually shift shape and re-crack. That is one reason I liked Doug Lepak's method of encasing the wheel in carbon fiber cloth. I figured that utilizing simple fiberglass cloth for my project would provide a sturdy enough base that I won't have to worry about cracks in the future. Like I said it was a time consuming project, I'd go to the garage and lay on some glass strips, let them dry, sand off any nubs or obvious high spots then lay on more. It's going to be time soon to start cutting in the grain, what I lack in real artistic ability I make up for with patience, so I'm convinced I will end up with something that is up to snuff.
One other thing I noticed is that the stainless trim bands are 'exposed' on original wheels, not buried under several applications of clear coat. I actually have duplicated this look by decreasing the size of the glass build up adjacent to the rings to make them slightly higher in elevation than the wheel rim itself.
Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of the glass build up process so I don't have that to share, but here is a shot of my wheel with a coat of primer on it and lightly sanded. A bit more sanding and then a coat of wood colored paint and I'll be ready to start on the grain. There's some great info on how to do that right here in this thread. I'll keep up with the rest of the project with pictures.