The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Hubcaps - Chromed to Painted

I have a paint-related question:

I have chrome (repop) hubcaps on my truck, but I have a photo showing the truck originally had white painted hubcaps. I don't see painted hubcaps for sale by the after-market, and haven't seen any originals for sale at swap meets. How do I remove the chrome from a reproduction hubcap in order to prepare it for painting? I'd prefer an electrolysis-type procedure over mechanical/abrasive.

Bill

Hi Bill. I have had good luck finding the painted hub caps at swap meets.

If you have patience - go to the upcoming meets and keep your eyes open.

Best of luck

Don't know about electrolysis, but didn't have any problems bead-blasting my repop's. Cheap chrome didn't stand a chance...

http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/ab145/BagdadChevy/untitled-005.jpg

Check out the album below for more pics. I'm going to try Duracoating them for a little extra toughness, will post pics after they're done this weekend.

I looked around for a while for painted hubcaps. I have 3, and 2 are in really poor shape- not really wanting to put valuable time into those, I too turned my eye to the shiny new chrome set I got for nothing off e-bay.
One thing's for sure- the reproduced caps are not of the same quality as the old (they weigh significantly less for one)- but they'll do.

Thanks for the info, Traeg. Your "after" shot looks like you had zero problem with the removal.

I don't mind getting reproductions and messing around with painting them. They are cheap in every sense of the word.

On picture 20, did you mask off the hubcap and then bead blast it? The line is so well-defined.

(Wow, you even have a radio!)

Bill

Yes, we masked it first- my buddy who owns the media blaster wasn't confident that it would work out as well as it did- so he did a test patch with straight lines so it wouldn't look horrible if we decided not to blast the rest of the cap. I was glad it worked!

I'll try to paint them this weekend and post follow up pics.

I haven't tried the radio yet- there's a huge gaping hole where the speaker should be- all in good time!

Here is mine I blasted and painted as well (used caps) even filled the dents with a little filler.

http://community.webshots.com/photo/2883476640102454676gfDkRD