Spray painting a bike wheel

Swaine55

I'm planning on going for a black/white coulour scheme. my back wheel is already black so il just paint the front wheel, it is the usuall sivler colour. anyone ever done this? do i need primer and all that, or some sort of air brush?

Tonyandthewhale

Never properly painted a bike wheel myself just splashed a can over an old beater mountain bike to discourage thievery. Paint seemed to hold alright but might work better if you covered it with some sort of gloss or varnish (mightn't work too well on the sort of plastic stuff wheels are made of) or just plenty of coats of paint. Also remember the rim, going to be hard to keep a coat of paint on that if you plan on braking at all at all I'd say. All that aside I'd say just go for it, spray paint is cheap and as long as you don't splash it all over the spokes and hub (unless you want them covered too) then you're not going to do any damage you can't paint over again later if it wears off or looks dodgy.

Swaine55

Thats what im unsure of. I want to paint the rim, spokes, and hub. Not sure if it would dammage the barings or anything

Morgan

I guess all you'd need to do is lightly sand all the surfaces to be painted and then apply several thin coats of spray paint.

It should work OK-ish as long as you avoid spraying paint onto:
axle-threads
bearings
braking surfaces

If you paint the spokes and nipples too it'll probably make truing your wheels a lot of fun in future.

I don't really see the point in doing this at all, but seeing as the weather is miserable it might occupy a few hours.

Chips Lovell

It sounds like a bad idea to be honest. Gunking up the nipples with paint could make the wheel hard or impossible to true if you ever need to. And I wouldn't let paint anywhere near the hubs.

dolanator

first things first if your painting any wheel do it while its unasemmballed(horific spelling)if its the rim you want to paint makes sure its just a rim no spokes etc,ive done it before to a velocity deep v rim,now that was already painted so i gave it a good scotch for the primer to take,i used acid etch primer stuff they use on bare welds,two coats of that then 4 coats of colour and 2 of clear laquer two years on its fine apart from an ovbvious mark where i clipped a kirb,its a pain in the ass and make sure its hanging whildt doing it and also watch out for runs in the paint,paint wise i used montanna nothing wrong with it if its used correctly