Polishing Aluminum

[sv250]

Seen somebody asking how to do this. Heres a quick how to.


First strip the anno with either crystalized drano or easy off. Drano works better.

Once youve done that you will need to sand it smooth with 600 grit wet/dry sand paper. You must get all the scratches, machine lines, etc. out or it wont come out right. The better sanding the shinner it will be.

Now its polishing time. Use a dico buffing wheel (the one with the most seams) and some aluminum rouge with a grinder or drill with grinder adapter. All available at Home Depot.

Peel the wrapper back and melt the rouge into the wheel.

Now polish the part.

Keep buffing until all the black stuff is gone. Then seal it with mothers polish.

The same thing can be acheived with out the polishing wheel or rouge by wet sanding again with 1000gt and a lot of rubbing with Mothers. Its more work, but you dont need to buy the stuff. I already had the stuff from doing 1:1 auto wheels.

---------- Post added at 5:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 5:04 PM ----------

Not sure why one of the pics isnt working, so threw in a pic of my Baja roof so you can get the idea.

 

[HPIguy]

Keep in mind the fumes from either of those is very toxic, and if you let a part sit for too long, it will permanently pit the aluminum. Nice write up and pic DIY though.

 

[sv250]

Yea, should have mentioned that. With the drano Crystals, it only takes seconds (10ish). Use something (not your hand) that you can dip and pull out to check every few seconds. Easy Off takes a while longer. Minutes vs. seconds. Also keep checking and dont breathe this stuff.

 

[Greenskeeper]

Pretty cool! My shop smith and I get OCD on polishing tools sometimes. I'm sticking to plastic for now... But hey now I know, and knowing is half the battle! Ty

 

[Bkyd Basher]

i do alot of polishing on the chassi of my snowmobile and although a little more mess i found the liquid polish seems to work better. I use wicked metal aluminum polish. JMO though.

 

[sv250]

Its all in the sanding. The smoother the alu before polishing, the better it will look. Liquid polish is juat a big mess IMO and doesn't work as well as Mothers or Blue Magic.

You can go from sanding to Mothers etc without using the rouge and wheel, but you will be rubbing til your fingers hurt. The rouge and wheel does it in seconds with little effort. Mothers used for clean up/seal.

 

[pgk]

Sweet looking pipe on ur 1/5th scale!

 

[Greywolf74]

Greased lightning also works for stripping anodizing or at least so I've read. the 1/5 scale does look really nice.