ok, theres been alot of questions/posts about this and ive been promising it for a while so today while i was doing some polishing i thoughtnid take some pics and sling up a quick guide... for this you will need sandpaper (60-100-160-240-600-1200) electric sander (not needed but TRUST ME its worth the tenner) tallo (again not needed but better) polishing compound (somthing made for ali, need coarse and fine polish for ali) polishing mops ok the process... start by cleaning whatever your sanding wiht a wire brush... it will look somthing like this NOW grab your 60 grit and start sanding.... this is the most important process as the FIRST finnish always determins the final finnish. meaning if theres a single mark in this other than the sanding marks your gonna see it, sand till you have NO black dots/lines/dents or deep scratches left.. it should look somthing like this again i cant stress just how important this is.. you need to cover every mm with the rough paper.. every little mark you ignore will be there when your finnished and to get ri you need to start again. now your happy and its flat and free of marks you can go up to 100 grit just to flatten it all off again, you will notice the big sanding marks from the 60 grit start to dissapear and your left wiht smaller scratches from the 100 grit.. keep going till its uniform like this this is just flatting further wiht finer and finer papers till you get upto 180/240 when it will start to look like this (nice an flat) at this point i like to add tallo (i didnt have any so just plonked the polish onto the sander for a second or two then sanded with that) as you sand this will "take" the ali your sanding off and turn it to a paste that will stick to the paper.. this is where you get your shine. notice how the paper starts to look like a mirror the more you use it.. keep going like this till its flat.. go up a grade in paper as it flattens out/becomes uniform. by the time you get to 600 it should look like this now keep going wiht the finer papers till you get to around 1200... at this point you realise its NOT mops that make shine, its flat metal.. the mops just bring out the shine. untill now i havent used a mop but out it comes... mop wiht mnore compound and the rough wheel for 5 mins and it will look like this keep going then switch to the fine mop and fine compound... not too much mind, little go's a long way. well, i rushed this a bit and the pics are not finnished as i skipped a couple processes to get this written up, so back to the shed for me (going back down to 240, want this like a mirror) enjoy peeps, any questions feel free to ask
good guide minor, just one little question where did you get the polishing compound / mops? and where did you find a electric sander for a 10er?
sander for a tenner from any cheapo tool stockist.. wilkinsons mine came from (9 quid) polishing mops/compounds/tallo you can get from any decent tool/hardware shop. does nobody go shopping and look about no more or are we a link happy "i need to be shown it to buy it" society?
got one of those sanders at town today cheers for the help ill pop down hardware store this week and get the rest ill post back to show how it goes :good:
as i keep saying the finnish is ALL in the prep same as paint.. so go smmoooooth wiht the 60/100 grit dry (doesent have to be wet an dry/emery paper for dry, just basic sandpaper works) will finnish the forks off and fill in what i missed out/skipped over breifly doing these (finnish isnt all that atall.. needs more work wiht the 240 upwards) biggest mops you can find (drill mounted) dont even think about bench grinders and the like. far too dangerous a thing to play about wiht changing disk's for mops. i wish everyone the best of luck wiht there polishing tho as if you put the time in and follow the process/DONT SKIP PROCESSES you shouyld all have mirror finnish tranny covers at least
ye man, ima get me one asap (need to sort the benches in the shed first) but DEFFO not for beginners... just changing a grinder disk for a mop can lead to fatal injury's not to mention just walking into it/leaning on it when its on, they fuckin burn. hand held drill will do the job just fine if your only doing a few bits, big tools for big workloads
Hehe yeah I know what ya mean. Yeah, dodgy when a engine casing suddenly goes towards the ceiling with you still holding it lol.
ye, with an arm round the grinder and a chest on the spinning mop... great fun (they run downward LOL) especially fun wiht no afety guards in place (most usefull) but ye, dangerous shit in the wrrong hands, worst you can do wiht a drill is scratch what your trying to polish, wrap your jumper up in the mop or MAYBE rip a finger off if your REALLY retarded
putting too much on.... but ye using high rpm buffers you do make clouds of spraying shit, you end up looking like a tramp, but hey thats polishing. mask and goggles are preferable altho they will need replacing regularly
Come look at me after a hour or 2 polishing with a bench polisher, look like ive spent the day down the pit
Great guide minor. just 1 question, what do u put on the polished surface to keep it nice n shiney cratch: i was thinking like clear lacquer but u may have a better option.
laquor just flakes off after a while as theres no "key" for it to adhere to so acts like powdercoat but softer (as in the only way it stays on is the fact it sticks to itself and is all over the item, one lil scratch and big flakes start happening) can use autosol for the final buff aswell as mantenance but if your cleaning with autosol and a hand cloth the finnish will get duller and duller the more you use it as it is like t cut for metal in that it removes a verry fine layer from the top of the material. ive recently switched over to begum after recomendations from a few different scorces as it protects for a week or two after you put it on and isnt atall visable/doesent "cut" into the metal like autosol. cleans real well too. best way to preserve polish is chroming (funny enough) polishing is 90% of the cost of chroming afterall. chrome doesent oxodise as easily as most metals hence they plate it over ali to keep the polished finnish, if you were to chrome an unpolished case it would simply be just as rough but it woukld be the colour of chrome. not nice atall.flakes like mad aswell if its not flat. electro plating is the opposit to paint, it needs a smooth surface to give a smooth finnish. but by far the best way to keep ali polished and looking nice for 10+ years
id rather leave it raw ali and just polish it once a week or when i come back from a ride .i used 2 do this as a job very messy i started off doing stainless systems for race bikes but ive polished some strange things trumpets and all sorts
i polished my grabrail using this guide but after bad weather it is getting brown marks that wont polish out any ideas what i can do?
It's polish it's not designed for wet weather. You need to polish it up again. Might come off just with autosol and a buff.