chroming

now that the bike is running great I need to make it look great... I want to polish and chrome much of the engine.. for example I want to polish the valve covers then have them chromed... the aluminum can be polished I just don't know which way is best... I want to do this on my own no shop.. dont want to spend the money for labor.... are those kits for polishing a good idea or are there some tricks????.. I heard somewhere that bead blasting is a great start.. all help is greatly appreciated

Have a care using foreign media to clean or prep components that have contact with engine oil. I know of one case for sure where it was determined the media had embedded itself into the metal during blasting, then released into the engine's oil, destroying the bottom end.

I would recommend paint stripper to remove any existing paint, then buy a couple of buffing wheels for your bench grinder and have at it - a dimmer switch works well on the less powerful grinders as a speed modulator.

Meguiars has a plethura of products for this, as do many others. I like the Meguiars stuff, you can find it in paint and body shop suppliers, also some of their product has a military spec, so you know it's the same thing every time.

I had mine blasted with baking soda turned out good and i put 2000 miles on this year?

Baking soda is definitely the hot ticket, IMO. Water soluble for cleanup after blasting so it won't leave any residue. The trick is finding a place to do it. Your other choices would be:
AA)plastic beading which is somewhat more expensive but leaves the original surface intact but extremely clean....so it's a good basis from which to begin polishing. Cleanup is relatively easy, although not as easy as soda.
BB)walnut shell blasting. Again, a non agressive cleaning process but NOT water soluble so more care needs to be taken on cleanup. Also a good basis for polishing.
NOT RECOMMENDED:
CC)shot or grit (sand) blasting because the agressive nature of the process leads to changes in the surface finish of the object being blasted. Cleanup can be VERY tedious because you have to remove ALL traces of the blasting media.
DD)glass beading is less aggressive than shot or grit blasting but.....the cleanup has the same problems as shot/grit.
Soda blasting is the best all-round choice for any bike parts, especially engine parts. Other items like frames, swingarms, trees, etc can safely be blasted with standard glass beading.