I know someone (kb377) did a nice write up awhile back about using aviation paint stripper on his rims and it looked awesome,but I was wondering if anyone took his advice and tried it? And how easy is it? I Really want to do that but he made it look so easy, it looks like masking everything else off would be the hardest part, any input would be great. Thanks

Here is my [input] approach:
1. Pull wheel off bike.
2. Remove tire.
3. Remove tone wheel.
4. Remove brake disc.
5. Tape the whole seal(s) over with 'gorilla brand' tape. Circle cut the tape using a fresh razor.
6. With a plastic knife, circle the inner [already] cut tape into the outer edge of the seal. This will expose more of the painted rim area.
7. Wear surgical gloves first, then use thick rubber [gauntlet style] gloves over that.
8. Brush on the aviation jell (I assume it's thick) and wait for it to wrinkle off.
9. Wipe off with paper towels before it dries kind of.
10. Re-Jell that which is still on the rim or cover the jell over the whole rim again until all paint is removed.

Now the hard part:

1. Buy a 6-8 inch buffing wheel for said drill press or place hand drill in a vice with this size buffing wheel.
2. Buy a bullet style buffer with it's own shaft for the chuck, or buy the [screw-type] shaft with replaceable bullet head buffers.
3. Buy smaller bullet style buffers to polish the inner spokes.
4. Buy 2-3 inch buffing wheels for the outer spokes. Any curves you are back to the bullets and hand held drill.
5. Buy said color bar of jewelers rouge (https://www.pjtool.com/polishing/polishing-compounds/) to dress the wheel and bullet bodies.
6. 'Gorilla tape' the drill chuck's gear teeth so no metal nicks the rim; if say you went too deep going across the widest part of the rim and oops, or I'd have to buy a cloth type cutting wheel to dress those divots.
7. Buy costco lint free polishing cloths for down the road cleaning.
8. Buy a liquid type polishing compound and figure the yellow costco cloth is going to turn black when bringing back the luster.
9. That or start with 20 push-ups, then hand polish with costco cloths and a tube of polishing compound. Buying means minutes. Hand polishing-out means hours times days to get to the finished product.

History:
I have a stand-up drill press and can crank the table down away from the work piece.
I used a floppy type cloth wheel that would breakaway off the wheel.
I had to build a combo cardboard/plastic booth around the drill press to control the fluff off the wheel.
I took out the deep gouges out of an engine cover I caused [transporting the bike].
I had sanding cones used for engine porting and could salvage the cover and hide the blems first.
I would walk out of the booth as if I worked in a coal mine all day.

wow thanks hub, that sounds like A lot more involved than I was hoping for

Speed, you got that right. It's a PITA from start to finish. You have to commit and not look back. Take this road... and pass.

The last set of wheels I did like this were on my 97 zx9. I only did the outer lip and left the middle green. Aviation stripper, some gloves, and plastic scrappers were all I used and a paint brush to spread the stripper. I did not have to do much polishing since the outer lip was smooth. I stripped, cleaned, rubbed with some metal polish.

Thanks bobby914 that’s exactly what I wanted to do to mine, love that look

Forget all that faffing about with stripper and scrapers! Strip all the hardware off the wheel and have it dipped. Then just polish up and clear laquer if you prefer. I had some Fireblade wheels done years ago but found they were a PITA to keep looking good, especially if you ride in all weathers so never bothered since. JMO

Mine were stripped and edges polished when I bought the bike. Looks great when shined up, but they're a pita to polish. Not sure how well clear lacquer will stick on bare polished metal.

I have been using a clear (Duplicolor) wheel coating on the hardware of my old Norton restoration. Might try some of that nest time it needs tires.

* Last updated by: Danno on 1/19/2018 @ 6:25 AM *

Clear poly.

Do whatever you want. It's not like you're going to be able to sell the stock rims for a reasonable price. The only reason to save them is because your going to try to sell the aftermarket rims you buy for a decent price which will be about half.

If I did any off season riding, I'd paint my stock rims white. Sand them down and paint the shit out of them. Nobody's going to buy those rims. If you're selling the bike in a couple years, just buy a set of used ZX-14 rims and do what you want with them.

Well I went ahead and stripped the paint of yesterday and I think the hardest part was masking everything else off
But it was actually very easy after that and they turned out awesome! Best thing I ever did, I DID IT EXACTLY how the write up about it said, except I used the gel aviation paint remover instead of aresol ,I had better control of where it would go, just brushed it on, wiped off, polished with metal polish, excuse my garage floor im in the middle of refinishing it, had to take a break from that and work on my bike...

* Last updated by: speedyme on 1/21/2018 @ 8:32 PM *

exactly like did it, looks great!

Back in 2013 (wow time flies) I posted some photoshopped graphics of black vs polished wheels: http://zx14ninjaforums.com/messages.cfm?threadid=A00AA5F1-1372-66AE-3B92927FB4FC68B1

My conclusion: Can't go wrong either way!