Polishing Aluminium

[seagull101]

Whats everyone's trick on polishing ali for little 40's?????

So far i am 2 hours in using a wire brush on a drill and have done a prop blade and about 1/4 of a engine support lug.


Jacob

[tambikeboy]

Wire brush then work down with emery untill satisfactory then elbow grease and autosol untill desired finnish is complet.
Best left for a Sunday morning after with Willie on the wireless

[Janzip]

Yes,
polish with compounds from coarse to fine, and when you are satisfied with the result wash and brush the surface thoroughly with dish washing detergent such as Fairy or Sunlight or similar but not with too alkaline stuff. Rinse carefully and then: Treat the polished surfaces with strong alcohol, drown them into it, like the stuff you use in camping stoves. This will keep the shine for a long time. I do not know the reason why, but alcohol keeps the aluminium shiny. This has worked well with, for instance, the hubs of restored old motocross bikes that are raced whatever the weather or conditions. Just wash them afterwards (not with a power washer) after a race and they still shine. Do not know, though, if this works on Seagulls.

Janzip

[Nudge]

I use these to get the worst of the scratches out

Brumby_SurfaceConditioning_BSCK755-214x214.jpg (6.91 KiB) Viewed 816 times

followed up by

Josco_PolishingKit_JPK1-214x214.jpg (26.02 KiB) Viewed 816 times

http://www.supercheapauto.com.au/Produc ... 8pc/386502

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lO2g58oziM

I do very little by hand! (It is not me in the video... it is just to show you how it is done)
The lazy man always finds the easiest way!

[AusAnzani]

I follow a similar procedure to that described by Nudge, but I tend to use sand paper instead of the discs particularly on the larger areas.

The reason for this is because it leads to a much more even surface, whereas the discs can sometimes take too much material away from some areas and not enough in others.

Flywheels and rope sheaves etc are just spun up on a drill press with sand paper held against the surfaces needing tidying up.

In all cases i might start with an 80 or 120 grit and slowly work up to 1500 wet and dry, before moving on to polish.

It does take huge amounts of time however, so I rarely do it these days.

Regards,
Spiro

[Nudge]

It took me longer to get the tools out than it did to clean and polish it up!

Now Im going to have to clean up the other side.

[seagull101]

Nudge,

WOW very impressive work, well done. Is there any chance you would mind sharing the procedure of this, as in which order to use which discs then wheels if you get what i mean.

A video of you doing the other side of the baseplate would be really cool to see and see the timescale of things. Not pressuring you just saying.

Cheers everyone, Jacob

[Nudge]

I will see what I can do later today.
The bench needs a bit of a clean then I will get into it!

[Nudge]

Ran out of time today! too dark now, I will sort it in the morning.

Chris

[seagull101]

No bother nudge, cheers

[Nudge]

I had already used a fine wire wheel on the drill to get the dirt off.... it took longer with the wire wheel to clean up than it did with the polypads

There is no editing in the video!

The order to proceed,
Sanding disk (not required for this job)
Brown poly pad (coarse, not required for this job)
Red poly pad (medium, not required for this job)
Blue poly pad (fine, only poly pad used for the job)
Felt pad, cotton buff (to be used with cutting soap, use a little soap at a time and often)

[AusAnzani]

I am impressed.

Thanks for taking the time to do that Nudge!

Regards,
Spiro

[Nudge]

No problem! If it helps someone then thats good for me!