Snowflakes, paint or leave natural

[larstorders]

Anyone got advice for me please?
I've been cleaning the wheels on my recently acquired R65. After 25 years the original paint was badly deteriorated, so I removed the remains with paint stripper ( it has a spectacular effect on tyre rubber, huge blisters forming where the brush strayed off the alloy, the 17 year old tyres were going into the bin anyway). The rear wheel has come up quite nice and now has a thin oil coating to prevent it turning white   . The front however, is very heavily stained and will need a few more hours of brass brush and acidy stuff to get it properly clean. So now I'm wondering, should I leave them au naturel, or will the constant care required be too much of a pain in the ass? Years ago I had a warranty replacement snowflake on the front of an R100RS and was disappointed to find it was bare alloy and didn't match the rear. I lived with it though. But it was so long ago and the good memories have long since covered over the boring times off cleaning up furry alloy.
So, does any one find bare alloy snowflakes are ok to live with ?
Have you painted your own snowflakes? any tips on paint choice?
Thanks all

[Bob_Roller]

It really depends on your particular environment, if aluminum is subject to surface corrosion in your area, I would suggest getting some kind of coating on them, or you will be cleaning the rims probably more often than you would like.

Powder coating is an option as well, Iv'e heard that there are two processes, one is a lower temp process, and is recommended for rims like the R65 has, and then there is the standard powder coating that uses temps in the 400 F. range, and subjecting your rims to that kind of heat I have read is not recommended.

[Justin B.]

Check out the rally wheel paint from Eastwood.  Here is the silver:

http://www.eastwoodco.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=96&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=410&iSubCat=411&iProductID=96

Or, you could super-clean and bleach out your cast aluminum and then coat with a clear like:

http://www.eastwoodco.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=415&itemType=PRODUCT&iProductID=415

Or you could paint them the same color as your bike, satin black, etc...

[MrRiden]

Ive painted my rims with a "dull" aluminum paint followed by a few coats of clear. They looked great until I buggered 'em up with brake fluid but I'll shoot 'em again when time comes for the next tire wrestling event.
rich

[larstorders]

Thanks for advice everyone. I decided to try them au naturel.  Hopefully they'll do well with a regular wash off after winter use. If not, I'll just have to take em off and go with alu paint and some laquer. I don't think I'll be keeping this R65 long term. But hey, those BT45's seem VERY narrow tyres   . I took AM20 90/90 and AM21 110/90 off and discoverd the BT45 90/90 is in fact 8mm narrower on the wheel at 86mm and the BT45 110/90 is 3.5mm narrower. Wonder if the AMs were a bit stretched out due to being old ?