Re-polishing aluminum parts

No H2O

No H2O

Active Member
jarnett said:
Started on a front end rebuild this weekend and decided to do some re-polishing of aluminum while I wait on parts. Re-purposed a bench grinder and results are pretty good so far
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very nice, what are you using/how are you doing it? I can seem to get everything shiny except my struts, I almost think I need to take them off and soak them overnight in something
 
jarnett

jarnett

Active Member
I'm doing my struts next they are very hazy. They get oxidized and also lots of very fine scratches that will cause the haze. Best to remove them. Then wet sand. If the scratches are very fine, start with an 800 grit, if scratches are deeper you can start as low as 320 grit. Keep a small bucket of clean water with a drop of dish soap and rinse the sand paper frequently. Once it's evenly sanded move up to 1000 grit. At this point I've had success with two options. You could move up to 1500 grit, then 2000, then use a polishing cream like mothers to get the final shine. Or if you have a couple buffing wheels, you can stop at 1000 grit and start buffing with brown tripoli, then white rouge. Use a new wheel for each type. The aluminum will start shining when you start the rouge or cream so don't get worried when you looked at the sand aluminum, it will get there.You can get buffing/polishing kits from home depot or somewhere like that that you can attach to a drill. Or remove the guards from a bench grinder and attach an 8" wheel. I've got the best shine finishing with the buffing wheels and rouge although the cream method works pretty well. It's definitely a dirty job and takes some elbow grease but it's worth it. Hope this helps

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No H2O

No H2O

Active Member
Call me lazy but that's a level of effort I'd only be willing to undergo on rare and special occasions :-o
(I wasn't even looking forward to unbolting the struts in order to have them soak)

Thank you for this level of detail, now I know what to plan for when the occasion does arise.
 
jarnett

jarnett

Active Member
You can probably get decent results with just some mothers polish and a cloth or power ball. I get it tho I let my bike go most of the time

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No H2O

No H2O

Active Member
I think I'll submerge this in a plastic tub so that the dirt can float off and away as I'm wet-sanding and then polish it up. if I ever need to go the extra step I'll do the buffing
 
jarnett

jarnett

Active Member
Finally got around to working on my front wheel after an ordeal with a couple stripped socket head button brake rotor screws. Ended up having to perform surgery to remove them and when the new ones go in there's no way I'm torquing them to 50 ftlbs as recommended in the manual the heads are way to small. I thought about switching to a cap head but not sure about clearances.

So anyway I got the wheel broken down and started polishing the hubs today. Came out pretty good.

Here's a before pic after a light sanding with 1000 grit just to remove the build up grime and after polishing with jeweler's rouge on the bench wheel.



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