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I finally motivated myself to polish some alloy wheels. I used an axle that I'd cut the dogbone section off, stuck that in the chuck of a drill, stuck the drill in a vise, mounted a wheel and went to town with sandpaper. I wet-sanded starting from 400-grit to 600, 1000 (ran out of 800, d'oh!) and 1500-grit. Washed them off and repeated with rubbing compound & polishing compound. Here are the results compared with some unpolished wheels.

The leftmost wheel pair are the "before" pics of a set of 4 used wheels I got on eBay; the second pair are the "after". The far right pair of wheels are a pair of Losi wheels that were NIP and unpolished. The third pair of wheels were also originally NIP, that I polished to show the difference between NIP "satin finish" and better-than-NIP polished finish...at least IMHO, polished looks better.

Congratulations coelacanth, polished looks better for me too

they look great, the hard work has given a impressive result!!

the third one is nicest for me as is deeper and it looks as having sligthly dished arms, not?

SAND SUPER STORE wrote:they look great, the hard work has given a impressive result!!

the third one is nicest for me as is deeper and it looks as having sligthly dished arms, not?

Thanks Jose.

I got the first two sets on the left together. However, the set was for some kind of Ultima and not an Optima, as the front wheels are meant to hold bearings, but the weird thing is the fronts are just as wide as the rears. For that reason, I needed to find another pair of similar wheels so I could mount 4 on an Optima. The third set are a different brand of wheels but seem to have the same offset as the second pair. The diameter of the third pair is also slightly bigger--maybe only a few millimeters--but the same tires fit both sets of wheels so it shouldn't be a concern.

P.S. If anybody has a spare set of wheels to match either of the 2 middle pairs, please let me know. I'm willing to sell or trade either of the pairs on the ends.

Nice job polishing those wheels Coelacanth.
Do you think the ones your selling will fit A 1/10 Slash 4x4?
J.R.

Jayar wrote:Do you think the ones your selling will fit A 1/10 Slash 4x4?
J.R.

most likely not...not without modifications to the wheels anyway.

Todd

The leftmost pair are free-rolling & meant to fit onto 4mm axles (I think, I would have to confirm) with 2 bearings inserted on either side of the wheels. The rightmost pair are meant to fit Losi, which use cross-pins and a plastic or alloy adapter of some sort to capture the pins. I looked into an adapter to make them fit a Kyosho (they exist) but the wheels are a larger diameter than the Kyosho wheels, and have an unattractive offset (too shallow on the outside). Being a muscle-car lover, I much prefer the deep-dish look.