Priming/painting wood wheels horizontally or vertically

[NealW]

This week I'm planning on priming the wheels to our 14 touring car that were rewooded by Stutzman's last fall. I am using a Urethane spray primer that is two part and cures pretty quickly. I am curious what people's experience has been, good or bad, in priming or painting the wheels laying horizontally and doing one side at a time, versus doing them vertically on a rod and rotating them by hand as they are painted.

Any feedback from people who've actually spray primed/painted wood wheels with them either laid horizontally or vertically?

Thanks,

Neal

[Ed Baudoux]

[image][/image]I made a tree with cut off ends of rear axle shafts, and hooks to mount a pair of front spindles. I drove it into the ground behind the shop, and painted the wheels on a sunny day. I spun them slowly by hand while spraying. I'll try to post a picture.

[DanTreace]

Will be more successful if you spray paint vertical and rotate the wheel as you do.

Photo is from the forum on this subject, pro method.

221625 (560x344).jpg (97.92 KiB) Viewed 351 times

For home garage work, placed a piece of PVC tubing clamped in the legs of a ladder, to rotate the wheel front hubs, used steel rod for the rear hubs.

Have also primed with brush and then sanded each spoke, more work but results on final spray was good.

wheel painted 75 (575x383).jpg (176.62 KiB) Viewed 351 times

Final finish on later steel felloe wheels using rotated vertical method.

[Rich P. Bingham]

Realizing some materials are spray application only, the best way to do an even, thorough job is to set up so wheels are vertical and can be turned from the center using a brush.

[Mike Silbert]

Neil,

While the most preferred method is to make a wheel spinner fixture that rotates them slowly with the "axle" horizontal.
Rotating them slowly while and after painting helps improve coverage and prevent runs.
After they are cured enough they get transferred very carefully to a drying rack to paint the next one.

Whatever you choose it has to do has to suit your situation plus time and materials budget.
They are painted in many different ways from just laying there to hanging on a post to on a fancy machine.
Whatever you choose to do make sure to do a "dry" run of everything from where to stand, gun angles, reach area, changing out between wheels, and make sure you answer the question of what you are going to do with a wheel covered in wet paint.
Wheels are full of nooks, crannies, shadowed areas, corners and edges so it is easy to spray too much (runs and sags) and spray too little (dry or overspray) so even the pattern of painting matters. Work from the hardest to reach to the easiest areas
Painting a set of wheels will take more time than it seems so make sure you are comfortable doing whatever you decide.
Rushing a wheel paint job will just make a mess and wheels are hard to sand the mess back out later.

Here are some examples from the past:
https://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/2 ... 1337880317
https://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/7 ... 1488162746
https://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/1 ... 1281966066

[Allan]

I do mine vertically too. After the first coat, you need to brush up on your counting to 12. Putting black over black, it is not easy to see where you have been. Starting at the valve stem hole, I rotate the wheel and spray one spoke at a time from the one direction, then rotate in the opposite direction and do the second side, counting all the time. Then the process is repeated from the other side of the wheel, so each and every spoke is addressed from four angles. The same process works for clearcoat also.

Allan from down under

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Photo is from the forum on this subject, pro method.

That is cool Dan! I looked at that picture and thought "that guy's Booth looks just like my Booth." Then I looked at the painter and said "Wow, that's Jimmy." Jimmy retired with me about 3-4 years ago after a 18+ year career working in my shop.

(Trivia tidbit; for those that attended the 2009 MTFCI Johnson City Tour, you might recognize Jimmy as the one that drove the yellow Snack Truck to each of the daily break stops. He missed the closing banquet due to going to the ER by ambulance with a mild heart attack on Friday evening. He recovered quickly and put in many years afterwards.)

[jiminbartow]

If you prime and paint by brush like I did, it is easier to do horizontally. Less chance of runs. If you spray, do vertically since you normally hold the gun vertically as you are spraying. Holding the gun horizontally and spaying down, the gun tends to sputter big droplets of paint, ruining your smooth finish.