Advice/Knowledge? Ronal LS Refinishing

[WBizarre]

Hey all,

I have a set of Ronal LS wheels that I need to re-finish. There's some curb rash, varying from mild to wild, and what looks like peeling clear coat. Do you guys know how the wheels were finished from the factory? It looks like the inside surfaces were painted while the face surface and lip were just clearcoated. I'm considering options for freshening them up. As I see it, stripping clear coat is required. Then I suppose the easiest course of action is to sand/bondo the curb rash and paint/clear the entire wheel silver? I do like the split finish look, but it seems like a royal PITA to achieve. Has anyone worked on these or similar wheels before? What would you recommend, finish-wise? I don't really want a mirror-polish, I'd like something close to the original look.




Mid-level curb rash shown. Another one is worse, one is a little better, one is a lot better.

[KyleAnderson]

They would have been fully painted, the face and lip machined "diamond cut", then the whole wheel cleared.

It's a hard look to replicate for a DIY'er. If you want to try, I would strip the whole wheel, prep the painted surfaces, polish where you want, clean thoroughly, mask the polished surfaces, then paint.

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

Severe curb rash can sometimes be filled in with weld as well if a polished lip is what you're after. It's hard to say whether that's necessary - the wheel you've shown looks as though all the rash ought to come out easily enough by hand.

[WBizarre]

This is the worst of it:



Honestly I think I'd be ok with painting the entire wheel silver to save the hassle, I don't know yet. They'd look like OE BBS nasketweaves.

[Larry]

get some liquid metal and fill that massive crater haha wear gloves when you do it tho!

prep and paint the wheels as they will be nearly impossible to get looking facory at home

[WBizarre]

Like in Terminator 2?! Haha
I have access to a TIG welder, so that crater is definitely getting filled. Finish-wise, what about putting on paint, then sanding it off of the face and lip? Then a coat of clear on the whole thing? Will that not produce a clean edge?

edit: or polish the lip and mask/paint the whole center silver? Provided I can get the lips clean enough to pull that off.