So, another day in the shed...
Wheels are now off. Unfortunately I was too late to get them to the tyre shop. I was going to get them to take the tyres of the rims, but ended up doing this with one of those R&R bead breakers we had lying around, and a bit of brute force. A thankless task!
With the tyres of it is easy to see that the lips on some of the rims are dented. How significant is this? My understanding is that the bead will lie on the inner part of the rim and a bent lip won't have a noticeable effect, other than an aesthetic one. That being said, now that they are off is it worth fixing the dents and is it an expensive process? If I am going to the effort of sand blasting and powder coating it would be a shame to leave them dented.
After all of that I had a chance to have a play with a couple of paint/rust removing wheels. They certainly seemed to do a better job than the old wire wheel. Much improved after only a few mins.