Compounding and polishing painted wheels

[Jokerjsp]

I have Dodge Charger with black painted wheels. They alot of halos (swirls). They need to be buffed and polished. But the way they are made there's no way to use a buffer. Any suggestions for this?

[SWETM]

There is polishing cones for paint. Here on AGO I can only find polishing cones for bare metalls. I think that they could be too coarse for painted wheels. These you mount on your cordless drill or corded ones works too. Some electric screwdrivers can work if they have enough rpm. You could also get something like the kit of backing plates from Flex with 1"-2"-3" sizes for rotary and get a drill adapter to them. Some even getting DA adapter if haveing a mini polisher or a 8mm free spinning DA polisher. This last setup is used on your own risk as it can be very tippy when polishing. That's why I would recommend to look for a polishing cone first and make sure that they are made for paint and not bare metalls. There is those that uses these on painted wheels too. But with nicer black painted wheels I would be as least aggressive as possible and also so I could finish them great. You could also do it by hand. But that needs a lot of elbow grease LOL.

[TTQ B4U]

I have to do the gloss black ones on my wife's SUV too. Thankfully I can probably use the Rupes iBrid unit. I'm going to do one per week as I hate polishing wheels. This time I'm using Q2 RIM coating on hers. I tried something different and hated it.

[spazzz]

It would be nice if Lake Country made some small cones or barrels for a drill.

Three different grades would be nice. Stout but inherently disposable because they would get tore up fairly easy.

The Mothers Power cones are okay, I used 2. I trimmed one down so the fluffy big part wasn't in the way destroying things.

I made my own with a sacrificed LC grey force pad, a 1" hole saw and dowel, not ideal but functional.
Go through some of your more beat pads and scissor up.
I would check the barrels first once you get the wheels off. Don't polish them on the car.

Be careful on the edges, go light so you don't burn through.

Other than that, the flats are easy. I used my Flex3401 and edged them.
Now I have a PE8 so the 1,2,3" pads will cut some of the time down