I was refinishing a spare set of wheels and decided go bronze. I share a couple sets of AP1 wheels with a buddy who autocrosses too, and we take turns codriving to split tire costs. His S2000 is NFR, so we thought bronze might look good on both (the other set of wheels is flat black).

I used some Bondo spot putty to fill in the curbing and sprayed them with Rustoleum Gloss Black as my primer. I've found that the old-school Rustoleum spray paint is much more durable than the fast drying Krylon. The Rustoleum takes a couple days to dry but it's worth the wait.

For the bronze coat, I used Duplicolor Wheel Paint, one can per wheel. Once they were dry I fogged them with a fine spray of the Duplicolor from a fresh can (pressure is strongest in a fresh can, which creates a finer mist). This gave the wheels a more matte finish. I didn't clear coat the wheels because I wanted the flat look. It's not as durable without clear coating but they are track wheels so I wasn't worried about it.

To smooth out the rough paint finish I used paper towels, because even 2000 grit sandpaper had too much cut on the Duplicolor paint. The results were much better than I expected. I haven't seen many bronze AP1 wheels, so I thought I'd share.

 

very nice!

 

i may have to steal your idea someday. Very Nice touch!

 

wow sounds like an up and coming paint guru.

looks good.. im lazy i just sand spray and wait..

 

Wow you did a great job man!

 

awesome finish

 

looks good!

 

 

I really didn't do much more than Spray & Wait. But thanks all for the compliments. The AP1 wheels look pretty interesting in bronze.

 

Wow, that looks great! I like those better than black PC'd AP1s