Abrasive blasting wheel hub/engine parts...

What type of media have you guys had good luck with getting the aluminum back to looking factory? My buddy wants to blast the wheel hub on his '79 KZ650. Its looking pretty dull and discolored. He wants it to look factory again, will not be going for a mirror polish here, just nice clean original look.

I have an econoline cabinet currently loaded with 120 mesh garnet. I haven't tried garnet on aluminum, scared it will be too aggressive. I don't have any scrap pieces I can test on right now and I don't want to ruin his hub!

I tried some glass bead on a breaker housing and it seemed to smear the aluminum around. It looked good when done but I didn't like seeing the aluminum moving around like that. Could be I needed to lower the pressure some, or use smaller bead. I'm not sure what size it was, but it looked very small.

I also have some very fine crushed glass I could try.

Just wondering what you guys are having good luck with.

Glass bead media works awesome. I just did my Jug or cylinder......will post pics.

Cylinder was gloss black.

I used glass bead from Harbor Freight. It was the 80 grit. The PSI was about 65.

I used paint stripper on it first. Took 98% of paint off in 20 minuets. I used a smaller brass brush to work the stripper and remove paint before it dried. Cleaned it off with a degreaser, nylon brush and hot water.

Then hit it with the Blaster. Turned out very good.

Glass bead has smoother edges than crushed glass, and will impart a smoother finish. The smaller the grit size the brighter the finish will be, but this media also has less cleaning power. I'm not sure what to recommend to replicate the factory finish. Harbor Freight general purpose glass bead at low psi might do the trick.

Looks good 4TheKZ. I'll try the glass beads again at a lower PSI, I was using 80, I'll try 60-65 and see what happens. I could see the metal smearing and moving around when I was blasting that breaker housing! It didn't seem to cut into it, just smeared it. That's what I want to avoid.

Just turn your regulator down.....you can go down to 45 psi. I would play around with it. The glass bead is some great stuff for Aluminum.

The cylinder still has the stock look to it. I think you will be happy as I am with the results.

4TheKZ1000 wrote: Just turn your regulator down.....you can go down to 45 psi. I would play around with it. The glass bead is some great stuff for Aluminum.

The cylinder still has the stock look to it. I think you will be happy as I am with the results.[/quote

I was going to use the XL soda on mine, is it not abrasive enough?

Blasted the hub today, still spoked with the wheel/tire on it. He didn't want to re-lace it. Turned the regulator down to 45psi to start and ended up at 65psi to get the results we wanted. It turned out looking very nice. It was dark after we finished so haven't seen it in the sun yet. But I think its good to go.

I think 85psi was just too much for the aluminum, 65psi seemed to work just right for my cabinet/media.

kaw-a-holic...

I've used regular grocery store baking soda on carbs and chrome parts. Works great on rusty chrome parts, it will take off the rust but leave the chrome intact.

You can try it on whatever you got, its very gentle and wont hurt anything, but it wont get heavy corrosion. The hub I blasted was too corroded for soda, it might have worked but probably would have taken forever!