shining that ugly metal

I'm pretty sure that the metal in aluminum, so I googled a bunch of how tos to polish up aluminum. I see a lot of them spraying the surface with oven cleaner before wet sanding. Is this necessary? I'd love to get this thing shinier!

As you can see it's looking pretty sad, especially against my shiny new mufflers....

Getting it nice and clean is easy. Rim cleaner and a power washer.

Getting it all shiney takes lots of patience and long hours of constant maintenence.

For the relatively flat stuff (and smaller areas with the right tip), I like a dremel tool with a polishing wheel. Just smother the part with mothers polish, then rub it down with the polishing wheel on around 2000rpm srtting until it dissapears and leaves a mirror finish.

Just dont nick anything with the dremel shank, as it will leave a permanent mark in the metal.

GL.

So wet sanding by hand with the different grits is not an option,I only want to do the area with the contact breaker cover....

lots of people wetsand it, make sure you get up to a really fine grit, then use a good polish after that. Keep in mind, once you polish it up really nice, it will start oxidizing right away, so to keep it nice you will have to polish it once a week.

Maybe this will help....

Buff-Book:
kzrider.com/index.php?option=com_docman&...d&gid=427&Itemid=108

Worked for me....
For the most part.... Tripoli then White Jewelers compound on a drill buff pad....

hey whats that on the end of your finger? :laugh:

Use this; you will be amazed:

S100

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I have used Autosol. It's a paste in tube. It removes all the old tarnish and then leaves an inhibitor to prevent more oxidization. It won't get rid of pits but does a great job. I put it on using a rotory toothbrush.
I thinks it's at www.autosol.com .
My bike hasn't oxidized since.

H1Vindicator wrote:

I wouldn't use traditional oven cleaner containing sodium hydroxide - it's kinda corrosive. Sodium hydroxide is also called caustic soda. It's used to etch aluminum.

Correct! In fact the instructions on oven cleaner cans say it should not be used on aluminum. Ed

Used 'em all, Mothers, Simichrome, Autosol, Neverdull and on and on... The absoute best product I've found is Ragman's Polish, met the guy at a race at Norwalk last year. The chrome shop that helps me with my bikes liked it so much, it's the only polish they use now & ordered a case.

www.ragmansmetalpolish.com . Works on aluminum,chrome and even chromoly and the best part is if your stuff is clean it takes about 1/3 of the effort to keep it clean after using his polish.

Used it on these:



The TF bike is acres of polished aluminum and an uncoated but highly polished chromoly frame/ wheelie bars.Ragman's polish keeps the oxidation way way down.