Can you paint bicycle spokes

You got your choice between gloss or matt. Your choice, I used gloss but its entirely up to you. Don't have any pictures of this, it wouldn't show much as it only changes the "shine" of the rim. Clear coat is an important step, it basically hardens the paint and makes it last alot longer. Make sure you wait atlease 2 days before clearcoating your final product because the paint must fully cure before the clearcoat will work successfully.

If you don't your paint will wrinkle and chip off eaisly. My Final words are, spray carefully, remember, light even coats! But most of all Have fun! Painting rims and many bike parts can become quite a hobby. Since my front rim, I have painted the back rim, my bars and my stem, its easy to do, just follow the steps. Thanks for checking my thread and I hope it helps you guys out. Thank you very very much!

I can build wheels, so I have a different approach I would take. I would strip the rim, and send it to the powder coat shop. Maybe we won't see so many pictures of painted over spokes and nipples now. This made me smile, maybe this forum isn't doomed to suck after all. Thank you. What if you want to put the stickers back on after, any special trick?

Thanks for all the great replies! Im not to sure about putting the stickers back on, the rim I used was a single track, and when I peeled off the sticker, all the adhesive was left on the rim, so I guess you'd have to get some type of adhesive to re-stick the sticker to the rim. This is the final result, I went for black as I found the silver paint to look fake. The black will also pair well with my freshly rebuilt gold calipers. Check this post: How to paint your brake calipers.

Why would you paint your spokes, you may ask? Well, to put it simply, my spokes are getting old and they looked pretty bad!

When the zinc plating wears off, they start to rust and look terrible Note: Don't make my mistake and make things worse by using harsh cleaning products on your wheels like Car Engine Degreaser and Mag Wheels Cleaner when you wash your bike. These products will eat the surface plating on the spokes and also leave some marks on the polished aluminum rims as well.

Yeah right, I could have gone this way but it is too easy! Seriously, I don't like the look of these and the fact that the rust will continue even worse underneath since you are trapping moisture with the sleeve doesn't help. I was doing other major upgrades like mm front disc and I got thinking about wheels. Unsprung weight, rigidity, and reliability are really important factors that will affect the feeling of the bike. But shortly after dreaming on a set of Woody's Wheelworks Superlace check them out, it's one of the best options for custom wheels.

Lindon Poskitt only ride these on his rally bikes or at least some Wrap9 , I began to realize that money-wise, not an option! New rims with new spokes on OEM hubs? Nah, in my opinion, that would be pointless and only bringing marginal performance for the money spent, even if you do the work yourself. So I turned to just refurbishing my wheelset for now. While I would have loved the complete black look for the wheel, I refrain from doing so because painting the rims will never lend to long-lasting results, even with a great prep.

Here is the complete tutorial to paint your spokes. Tools and supplies needed. Steel wire brush and medium grit Scotch brite pad. Once the wheel is half off, peel the tube out from inside it, using care when removing the valve stem from its hole.

Then the other side of the wheel should come off relatively easy 2. Take spoke nipples off --Using a spoke wrench or screwdriver, start by loosening the tension on all the spokes evenly, to avoid "potato-chipping" the wheel i.

If you are working with a rear wheel, make sure you keep the inside and outside sets of spokes separate, as they should be different lengths. You should now have an empty rim, all your spoke nipples, your spokes, and an empty hub, and this is the perfect time to give them all a good cleanup, especially to prevent nipple-spoke seizing. Depending on how good you want your finished product to look, painting can be a very lengthy process.

Sanding, priming, delicately masking, and carefully painting are steps recommended for anyone looking for long-lasting great-looking results. For my wheel, I did not sand, prime, or take much time masking and painting, and I ended up with a rather inferior finished product, but I was not hoping for anything more.

I did run into two problems, though, that I would caution against. This is easily remedied, but once again, this is the poor man building the wheel, so he said "Oh well. After painting the first side and letting them dry for at least 15 minutes depending on temperature, wind, etc. Try to get the spray paint in at an angle so that you get all sides of the spokes. For the rim, stand it up with one hand and spray the bottom from the inside of the rim, towards one side of the tape, to get as close to the tape as possible.

Turn the wheel and paint as you go, then when one coat has dried, flip the wheel and paint towards the other side of tape. To begin, drop 9 spokes into every other hole on one side of the hub. Take one spoke and put it through a hole in the rim and loosely twist a nipple on to the spoke to hold it in place.

Only twist each nipple on to the spoke enough to hold it 5 turns or so so you don't get too much tension too soon. Working around the hub, take the next spoke and do the same thing in the rim hole four spaces over from the first one.

Continue until all the spokes are attached to the rim with spoke nipples. You should have three open holes between each set of spokes. For the second set of spokes, you are going to move to the other side of the hub, and again, drop them into every other hole from the outside of the hub. When you look down through the holes, the spokes you just put in should be either just in front of or just behind the first set of spokes.

This is important, as you need to put it in the hole of the rim that corresponds to the hub positioning. The second run should be in holes on the rim directly adjacent to the first run, and once again, in every fourth hole. The holes in the rim should be half filled now, in a pattern of 2 empty, then 2 filled, then 2 empty, etc. For the third set, you are going back to the first side, but this time, drop the spokes through the holes from the other side of the hub i.

Just make sure they are sticking through the hub flange in the opposite direction of the first set. This is where it gets a bit more complicated. Take the hub and twist it in the rim, so that you tighten up all the spokes and they meet the hub at an angle see picture.

If you are doing a 3 cross pattern, the new spokes will go over the first two spokes they cross, then under the second, and will be two holes away from the last spoke it crossed. The third run spokes should be making a big X with the first run spokes, starting six holes apart on the hub, crossing, then ending two holes apart on the rim. If you are still a bit confused, try looking at different picture and trying to get a view of it. This is it, your wheel is almost whole again or for the first time!

Drop the spokes in the same way you did for the third run, from the opposite side of the hub.