- If black and milled wheels
are the buck knife of the truck world,
then there's absolutely no doubt in my mind
that chrome wheels or the Swiss Army Knife.
I said what I said, right?
Chrome wheels, they look great on pretty much everything.
Got a black truck? chrome wheels.
White truck, chrome wheels.
Red truck? You guessed it, chrome wheels.
And while they look great on pretty much every truck build
out there in the history of existence forever,
there are a few questions that come up from time to time
about chrome wheels and how they actually work.
I'm Dustin with Custom Offsets
or Dusty.co on the old Instagram,
if, you know, that's something that you're into,
and today's video is all about chrome wheels,
how they're made, and why they've been so damn hard to get
over the last 18 months, and better yet,
what you guys can actually expect
if you're looking for chrome wheels this year.
Before we dive into the actual chroming process,
I gotta know, are you guys chrome guys,
or are you black and milled guys?
Let us know down in the comments section below.
Also, if you're looking for a set of wheels
from some of your favorite companies like TIS or Fuel
or Arkon, or even more,
we literally have tons of inventory in stock,
ready to ship right to your door at customoffsets.com.
If you order with tires,
we'll even mount them and balance them,
and then, you know, ship them to you for free,
saving you the headaches
and the possibility of your brand new chrome wheels
getting all banged up on the way to the old tire shop.
That's the plug, take it or leave it.
Into the video.
Chroming metal is not a new process by any means,
and while, sure, has gotten a little easier
over the last couple of decades,
the original chroming process
was developed sometime in the early 1900s.
I guess they couldn't just wait to get some like,
chrome 14 wides on their old
Ford Model T pickup trucks back in the day.
Either way, the actual process of chroming
is pretty damn in-depth.
It starts like most other wheels do,
with a cast aluminum wheel.
These wheels are made by heating aluminum alloys up
until it's literally a liquid,
like boiling hot molten metal,
and then they pour it into this mold
that just so happens to be in the shape of a wheel,
like, maybe, an Arkon Lincoln.
Once the mold and the metal cools down,
they split the mold apart,
and then voila, you have yourself a wheel,
except it's really ugly.
It's an off-gray, aluminum metally color,
and it has some surface imperfections,
and from there, this newly born 14 wide
is gonna be sanded down, right, and cleaned up.
There's no mill scale left on it,
and then the fun really starts.
While some of these wheels are gonna get sent off
to be painted milled and powder-coated
and all sorts of crazy colors and stuff that you guys like,
the chrome boys are gonna head over
and get a good hot bath and a cleaning agent.
This bath is gonna strip the wheel.
It's gonna remove any mill scale
or contaminants from the casting process
and make sure that the wheel's good and clean
to get started.
Once they're squeaky clean,
as your driving record when you were 16
before he got pulled over for like,
triple digits in a 35 mile an hour zone,
- Man, you can't go 102 in a 35.
I mean, this is the bottom line here.
All right? - Whoops.
- Copper's used as a primary stage of the chroming process
because it's relatively inexpensive, think pennies,
and also, it leaves the surface of the wheel
nice and smooth, giving you that awesome finish
that you're looking for in chrome wheels.
These wheels are gonna get rinsed,
and then they're gonna get dipped again in a bath,
but, this time, it's with nickel, right?
Another metal that you've probably heard of.
This nickel plating is gonna seal off the copper
so copper doesn't corrode, because copper likes to do that,
and then it's also gonna give you a nice, shiny base
to lay that chrome on,
meaning that your chrome wheels are gonna shine
just like you want them to,
because that's why you bought
chrome wheels in the first place.
After another quick bath,
the wheels are again gonna be rinsed off,
and then they're gonna take another bath,
but this time, it's an electrically charged solution
of chromium and other liquids.
Now, chromium is derived from, get this, chomite.
It's this cool little rock thing that they mine
from like, South America,
and then they grind up, and then they mix it
with these other liquids, and it makes chromium,
which then provides you guys with a chrome finish.
On top of that, they dip these wheels
in a vat of electrically charged liquid.
How metal is that?
Now this is where it gets tricky.
Up until a few years ago,
most chroming was done on smaller parts,
like, you know, various pieces of bumpers
and smaller wheels and stuff like that.
I mean, heck, up until like, 2017,
a 22 inch wheel was a big wheel on a show truck.
It's crazy to think that
that was just a couple of years ago, right?
Because of this, many factories that produced chrome wheels
built their tanks to accommodate smaller wheel sizes.
This is all fine and dandy until like, 2018
when truck wheels began to grow bigger,
and bigger, and bigger,
which meant the chrome wheels
also began to get bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
Now this created a unique challenge for a lot of factories
as they weren't properly set up
to handle wheels of that size.
A 2614 is a lot bigger than a 2210.
Then we had this cool thing
called a global fricking' pandemic in 2020
that set the whole world back.
It caused labor shortages all over,
and what that really boils down to
is that chrome wheels became damn downright hard to get
for a little while there.
Good news, though, here, is that it seems to be changing
as we roll into the new year,
and things are actually looking on the up and up
when it comes to chrome wheels.
If you're looking for chrome wheels today,
you have some options,
like right now, we're seeing some of the best inventory
that we've seen in a really long time
when it comes to chrome
from companies like TIS and Arkon Off-Road,
the ones that are, you know,
making some of those bigger show sizes,
which is better yet,
because we're not talking about chrome 20x10s here.
The outlook on some of those bigger sizes,
like your 22s, your 24s, your 26s,
your 10 and 12 and 14 wides all look really, really good
and should have plenty availability
as we look into show season of this year,
unless you're down south,
in which case, show season's already here
and you better actually get after getting your chrome wheels
like yesterday, you're gonna need 'em,
because, you know, there's probably a show in like, a week.
May I recommend you check out customoffsets.com.
You can actually pick up a set of chrome Arkon Lincolns
like that one right there.
Get 'em shipped to your door in as little as seven days,
plus we're gonna hook you up
with a hundred dollars gift card to boot!
Don't waste any time.
That gift card thing's gonna end in like, a month,
so you better get out.
What's your favorite chrome wheel?
Let us know down in the comments section below,
and if you haven't already,
please consider subscribing to the channel
so you guys can keep up
with all of the awesome Custom Offsets content
that you've come to love from us.
With that, I'm Dustin with, (blows raspberry)
With that, I'm Dustin with Custom Offsets.
We'll see you guys.