Painting wheels

Yeah, too late now - I chose glossy black for the wheels, so in that sense wouldn't make a difference.

My wheels are the same as Satan's !:evil: :woohoo: I did use some 400wet to smooth-out the fine-milling finish on the rim-edge and although not polished it's "brighter", easier to clean and will keep getting shinier with each cleaning. The "spoke" edges have a courser milling finish and have been left as is. They do wipe clean, none-the-less. Clear-coating the spoke-edges has never been a consideration due to - as Stan pointed-out - the work involved to do so. In my opinion, no real benefit. I do however use a spray-wax directly on a cloth to help preserve the entire rim luster and after all these years the rims still look like new..

Scotch, you're noted and have two brownie points on Satan's list Life's good when you're ahead in line! LOL
That's the course I decided to take. Pain in the butt masking these things right now, but it would be more pain trying to clean them to perfection all at once before clear coating. The treatment you outlined Scotch worked fine for me in the past, thanks for the confirmation that there isn't much to improve there at this point. I think these wheels are sprayed solid color first when made, and then machined afterwards to expose aluminum in the right places. Definitely there was no clear coat on mine. Clear coat dulls the shine as well, perhaps that's why I've seen it avoided? I have no idea if that's true as well with clear ceramic coating.

I had the previous powder coating removed by dipping before being blasted clean then polished the rims and spokes , gave them 2 coats of Etch primer then sprayed them with smoothrite gold by Hammerite

It looks great! I've also been playing with the idea of golden wheels. They have a black theme now, but I might change to gold in the future, like yours. I am also going for an overall blue theme.
I am not exactly sure yet on the shade of blue, I am thinking of a darker metallic blue. Depending on what they have available in spray cans. White and silver stripes.

Although I had mine painted by a paint sprayer
I have in the past gone to a small company that mixes paint to order looked at their colour cards and Have had that put into rattle cans