Sanded a spare rim. Looking to do the rest.
Heres how I did it :
Soap water degrease
Stripped the clear
Sanded with 220 300 400 600 800 1000 1200 1500 2000 and finally 2500

Polished with a megs and another cream and viola! Any tips or suggestions?
I went from the outside in as opposed to sanding every surface at the same time before moving to a finer grit.

 

Nice, bet it was a lot of work.

 

Looks pretty good in that pic. Leaving like that or painting the relief surfaces black like oe and clear coating?

 

Was an all afternoon affair.
I was considering white for the cast surface to make the polished surface pop but a black is def the goto color if I try white and it does not do it for me. Factory is best

 

Nice, gonna take care of that corrosion around the bead since you got the sand paper out?

 

Looks nice! I like it just like it is.

Clear coating is a double-edged sword. It will protect the bright areas . . . until it is degrades. With the polished surface, you can touch it up fairly easily.

There's a process called physical vapor deposition that gives a satin bright finish, similar to polished. I bought a set of OEM wheels that had been through the process to mount my snow tires for my winter DD. 4 year later, they still look great.

 

Look great.

My tip: next time save your fingers and invest in some buffing wheels and metal polishing compounds. Infinitely superior result and way less work. Anything finer than around 200-400 grit can be quickly polished out mechanically using polishing compound. It's usually a 3 stage process. For aluminium, sisal wheel with black/grey compound, cotton wheel with Tripoli (brown/red) compound, then soft cotton wheel with white compound. Even for the rougher stages, you can apply greaseless compound to a polishing wheel so you don't have to sand with paper.

Check out Plating Kits Electroplating Kits Aluminum Anodizing Kits Gas Tank Sealer Metal Polishing And Buffing Supplies - Caswell Inc. It has some very useful tutorials on the subject. They also sell kits specifically for polishing wheels: Aluminum Wheel Finishing Kit - Caswell Inc

 

It was a chore, but well worth it!

 

my process was similar but I started with a 2 inch orbital air sander with Scotch bright discs to remove the clear. The seven plus steps of wet sanding were the hardest. I had help from my brother and it took roughly 1-1/2 hours a wheel. These are on my 83 and I love them, but not enough to do it again for my 85. Lol.

 

I think they turned out great! Are you planning in clearing them as well?

 

looks nice