repairing alloy wheels

I have been considering having my sprintmasters repaired. I havent spoken to any wheel repair place yet, but i have been told its around $150 per wheel.... How exactly are the repairs done, and could i do it myself ?? I have seen repair kits for sale on ebay, but they are for the painted alloy type.... thanks for any help..
Adam

The price for wheel repairs has been steadily rising in the last few months, what once might have been an average of $150 in the past for a basic repair is now $200+ as well as ya GST.

We use Depulu Wheels at Ashmore down the coast, turnaround is typically slow even for trade usually around 7 days. There is really only a handful of wheel reconditioners left in S.E QLD these days and they're obviously got a heavy workload.

Depending on what needs repairing, they use all types of methods to repair/recondition wheels, a lot of it with Lathes to reface etc. Will definately be a case of taking your wheels to one of the places and getting a quote and a rundown of whats required.

But polishing and painting wheels could be done at home by a D.I.Yer easily. Straightening, Welding, Machining stuff would be the domain of a shop.

thanks pete... it is mainly just polishing and "filling" small scratches and nicks... I would have thought a lathe could be used, but what if there were rather deep scratches in the wheel, surely then it would have to be filled ?? I was just curious to know how they would do this....

Typically they would weld up cracks/extreme gutter rash etc and then back on a lathe and machine/reface them.

I'm not a wheel repairer so I'm only going from a 3rd party experience. Insurance companies no longer allow any welding of wheels anymore in the course of repairing damaged cars but I think done properly it would stand up without any problems.

I would've recommended Wilsons Wheel Works in the past but they've been out of business for a few years now, they were bloody good though for old school wheels!!

I think theres a few other repairers on the southside if you ripped out a Yellow Pages im sure there would be a couple you could stop in and say hello.