Replica Fuchs

[Jay Jones]

Has anyone ever tried to get a 'retro look' by stripping the paint off of the petals of the EuroMeister replica fuchs? I assume they need to anodized before painting so the underlying metal should look OK with a light polish.

Or maybe its possible to get a set unpainted?

[ttweed]

Jay-

You cannot have a wheel anodized that has any paint on it. It must be totally stripped and re-polished before they will dip it. You can't strip the paint off of just the petals/spokes and leave the rest. You are going to have to have to mask and repaint the centers completely afterwards. I would try to get them unpainted, if possible, otherwise, it will not be a cost-effective process. The last time I did this with a set of forged Fuchs, it was $100/wheel to get them fully polished, $40/wheel to get them anodized, and then your time and material to mask and prep, prime and paint the centers. This was quite awhile ago, and costs have gone up, plus the shop I used for anodizing here in SD has been closed down by the EPA. You might as well send them to Al Reed in Anaheim and just pay him to do it, honestly.

The only cheap, do-it-yourself way to get that look is to bypass the anodizing and just strip and polish yourself, then use Scotchbrite pads to dull the bright finish to resemble anodizing. There are several threads on the Early S Registry and Pelican Parts forums about doing this. Search for "Bob Tilton" and "Scotchbrite" and you can probably find them. I did a set of 6" Fuchs painted in the early 4.5" Fuchs pattern for my '67S that way and they turned out pretty well, as long as you were 5' away.



HTH,
TT

[Jay Jones]

Tom,

I appreciate the input. What I'm considering is buying a new set of replica Fuchs and 'gently' stripping the petals. Perhaps somebody has tried it?? Anyone? And yes it would be easier to find unpainted replicas. but so far I haven't been able to find out if it is possible. I would think they'd offer a polished pedal version if there was enough demand. The 17" Linea Corses do offer a polished version that looks pretty good.

Its clear that refinishing an older set of wheels is a lot of work. fwiw, there is an anodizer here in SD that I called, but they needed to know the metallurgical content of the wheels. Its becoming popular to polish out the wheels, but that removes the anodizing and then requires more maintenance. Given the choice, I'd rather drive than do extra maintenance...

[gocart]

I did this to my real Fuchs. If I was you I would consider buying some used real Fuchs and stripping the paint off. Real Fuchs with black centers are already anodized under the black paint, but not polished, so they are already finished like you want. The only problem I ran into is that different years of Fuchs have a slightly different appearance of grayness on the petals. There are lots of good used Fuchs available at reasonable prices, assuming you are not after the real wide ones. Problem is the lips are polished, there must be a way of dulling them down with out removing the anodizing. (I did that once by accident).

Gordon