I was recently scratching my head about how to blend my car's chrome lug nuts in with the wheels a little better. I decided to try re-coloring the wheel centers to look like magnesium wheels that had been treated with Dow7
I searched numerous topics here, and on the HAMB, and I found that most guys simply paint the wheel centers gold, and then let a few years of brake dust build up to dull the finish down.
At first, I was planning to go whole-hog and blast, etch, and dip my entire wheels in Alodine (Alodine is a dichromate coating which leaves aluminum a very similar gold color to what Dow7 does to Magnesium): but, I decided to try rattle-canning them first, just to make sure I liked the gold look, before I decided on something more permanent. The beauty of spray paint is that if it turns out like crap, a little paint stripper, and the sand blaster work like a magic eraser to return everything back to the way it was. But, as it turns out, I was very pleased with the final results.
After scouring the rattle-can aisle at my local hardware store, I decided on a 2 color approach. I used two off the shelf rattle cans- Krylon Dual Superbond Gold (8845) and Valspar Metallic brushed nickel (66005)
After scrubbing the wheels with degreaser (the yellow stuff from HarborFreight), I sprayed each one down with brake cleaner, and then masked off the polished lips and the valve stems.
The first spray was a full coat (front and rear) of the Gold color. After letting that set for about 15 minutes, I went back and did a dusting coat on the fronts of each wheel with the Nickel color, followed by a dusting coat of gold, followed by another 15 minute sit.
I repeated the dusting process (gold, followed by nickel) about 5 more times on each wheel front, until both cans were nearly empty. The final coat was a very light dusting of the nickel color.
On the backside of each wheel, I just left the pure gold color, and in the pic below you can see the difference between the two finishes- The gold color alone did not give that signature greyish coloration of aged Dow7 on magnesium. but I think that combining the two colors gave the wheels a really close approximation of magnesium wheels...
Once they get some brake dust and road grime built up on them, I think they will start to look even more old-school...
For the lug nuts, I let them go overnight in my vibrating tumbler with the coursest stones I had, and painted them to match, just so they would blend in a little bit better
The first pic below is one of the best I found of an actual magnesium wheel with Dow7 on it. The second pic shows my wheels, front and back, to show the difference between pure gold paint, versus the 2-color process.
the last pics are before and after.
the difference between using just gold paint alone (right) versus the 2-step process I used (left)
Before- bare aluminum centers:
After- with the gold tinted centers. The difference is very subtle, and will pass right over the casual onlooker, which is exactly what I wanted.
