To clear coat or not after polishing wheels.

So I bought a set of Leon Hardirits during the summer. They were a used set and I I didn't like how the lips looked so I sanded them and polished them up till they were mirror status. I talked to a wheel shop and said they usually powder coat the clear coat after polishing wheels to avoid the maintenance of keeping polished lips shiny. Well, I dropped of the wheels off at a local powder coating company and a week later after the shop had to powder coat the lips twice because of bubbling and what not, I was not satisfied with the result. Despite how much time I put into polishing the wheels and the the fact that the lips lost so much shine after clear coating, the shop did not charge me. I'm going to try sanding the lips and buffing them out to see if it gets better. If not, I may either run the lips with out any clear coat or just do a whole new color scheme (flat black lips, glossy black face, gold rivets). The purpose of this thread is to see what most of you guys do after polishing wheels or what do you recommend. To clear coat or leave it bare metal?

Also, does anybody know where to get gold rivets?

[QUOTE=Shaminii;271225]

Also, does anybody know where to get gold rivets?[/QUOTE]
Superstar sells them.. no idea on the other question

Hmmmm...it a tedious question..I do autobody work and I have done quite a few sets of rims in my time.Your problably gonna have to leave them uncleared, in the past when I have tried to clear over polished wheels, it wasn't a very good result. The only thing that sucks is..who wants to keep goin back and polishing there wheels on a regular. Not to mention there is no protection on them from road debris.:sad:

Uncleared look much better but they get hazy in a day or two so you need to keep polishing them to get a nice shine.  If you dont have a powerball, I would say a good 40 minutes is needed on each wheel to get them to look like a mirror

Keep on polishing them without clearcoat. Don't murder your wheels, it is a crime.

leave them unclear, ihave a set before that has been polished then clear coat it wasnt as shinny.so i have them stripped it off =).

eagle one and other companies have a "wax" to put on polished wheels that help...I have tried Zoop seal (it is a 2-3 step process to seal in the shine, cost about 90 dollars) before, it took alot of time to do, then i sold the wheels and the idiot polished the zoop off to get the wheels ever shiny er....so i am not sure how it would have held up