Hopefully this will get stickied cause I cant find it anywhere. Except for how to do the rims and I know that process is a little different.

Ok...
How do you polish parts like: Forks, engine covers, and swingarm.

What steps do u take? What chemicals do u use, and where to get them?
Suggestions on what parts to start on if your a noob at it.

TY

 

Do a search for "Frame polishing"

 

Alright... Thats way too crazy for me. Lets say i just wanna polish my engine covers... They have some knicks and scratches.

Gimme a couple chemicals, and lets say sand paper or proper grinding wheels.

 

I thought that engine covers where Japanese? How do you Polish them? rub them with Perogies?

 

What you need to do is go to a auto parts store and get wet/dry sand paper in 220, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, and 2000 grits. Also get a can of aluminum polish. I like Meguiar's Hot Rims Mag and Aluminum Polish.

Fill a small bucket with water and soak the paper for 5 min. start sanding the texture away with the 220 until the parts smooth without any pin holes. with the next grit up sand until the lower grit scratches are gone. Repeat all the way up till 2000 grit. Remember to dunk the paper in the water every few mins to clean out the paper.

Wash off the part and dry it. Polish the part following the directions on the can (get a paste polish, the liquid dosnt work as good).

Reassemble the bike and admire your work. Its alot of sanding work but the result is worth it. The cast part of the frame and swingarm are a PITA because its so rough. I recomend doing one part at a time so you dont get overwelmed. I'm working on finishing the frame this weekend and i allready did the levers, rearsets, pass pegs and mounts, and all visable body screws.

The smoother you get the part the closer to a chrome look you will get.

 

Thanks man. That doesnt sound too insane. I dont mind sanding. TY

 

quick tip if you can take the side covers off the engine, i just did it & it worked great. go to a truck stop and find 7" cloth polishing wheels either use a bench grinder or a big hand held grinder & a bar of polish compound. keep adding polish to polishing wheel and a little pressure. this took the charcoal coat right off and went directly to a nice shine. be prepared though, it throws black dust everywhere, especially on you

 

Good advice, I can do that no problem. So just a regular polishing wheel then? I have an nice electric angle grinder and a bench with plenty of c clamps.

 

Polishing parts is alot of work... It takes a lot of elbow grease. I am doing my wheels tonight, and it is a bitch.

Strip the paint with any chemical stripper, I used orange Citri-Strip, works great but has to be left on over night. It is the best, cheapest way. The spray cans of aircraft stripper are costly and to get all of the paint off takes a few applications. You will have plenty of Citri-Strip left over for other projects.

When the paint is off, neutralize the stripper with mineral spirits, then wash with soap and water. From there it is pretty much exactly what supertrooper says to do, only thing I can add is that it helps to go across the grain of your previous sanding grit, not with the same direction. And, I found you can usually go from 220 to 400 to 800 and be close to the final product. 1000 grit is pretty much a dull polish, but to really get it good I use a coarse buffing wheel with cutting compound followed by a white compound on a soft buffing wheel for the really "chrome" like final shine. I don't use polishing paste from a can except to clean when the part begins to tarnish. It's the high temps/heat from the polishing wheel that seals the pores of the aluminum and makes it really water and dirt resistant. You can't get that from your fingers in a cloth with Mother's or Meguiars unless you are superman.

On most parts without machine marks, you wont have to sand so much. But wheels, cast engines and frames need to have those lines and rough spots sanded out really smooth before you go to the finer grits of wet-sand paper or you won't be sealing the pores of the aluminum, you'll just be shining the high spots and leaving low spots which gather dirt and tarnish faster.

 

Im gonna save the info u guys gave me to a text doc. Im gonna start by Polishing a clutch cover I just got. Im prolly gonna have to file a little rash first off it first.

So, Is powder coating different than paint? Or can I use the same strippers for powder coating?

 

Should work fine, may be a little tougher than paint but it is pretty much urethanes, just sprayed on dry then baked instead of laid on wet.

 

i knew i left something out. good catch supermarto.

the polishing wheel is a great way to go if you have the supplys but i dont so i did mine by hand except the cast part of the frame. a palm sander and 220 make quick work of the flat cast parts. i dont have any problems with tarnishing on my bike but i dont let water air dry on it.

as for the powder coat, i think it needs to be sanded off first not chemicaly striped but i could be wrong.

i found some good tips on this site. http://www.englishcustompolishing.co...erbuffing.html
look under power buffing and poilshing tips.

 

Mother's boys, Mother's.....

 

Another little tidbit I just discovered is that there are different grades of aluminum that sand faster or harder than others...

The F4i (or was it an F3?) front wheel was much tougher to sand the machine marks off of as well as being a little bit darker (before the sanding, once it was sanded it looks as bright as the other wheel) which is the 900rr rear wheel... that bitch sanded like butter! They are both down to the final grit, all I gots to do is hit em with my angle grinder converted to a buffing wheel and the compounds.

 

Just did my wheels over the last few days. Ton of work but worth it. Probably about 8-10 hours of work for both but mine were in tough shape. As said above, 220, 400, 600, 1000, 1500, 2000, #0000 steel wool, mother's mag/aluminum polish. My fingers are in pain and are now very sensitive to heat. I think I sanded down to the nerve endings. No power tools here. BTW, Make sure you spend the time getting it right at each step. If you don't and rush it, you may not see the minor imperfections when until you polish it and you'll end up doing a lot of it over again.

 

Amen to that... I just saw little machine lines that I missed. The only reason I am not going back to do it over is cause this ain't gonna be a show bike, I am just lookin' fer some bling factor.

 

Thanks for all the info guys... Made me rethink my polish project. I dropped my bike in a parking lot. went to take it off the stand and stepped into a pot hole... i dove off and the bike literally bounced. Looks like i get to fix the bod first.

 

It's not difficult buy very tedious and time consuming, and it's also maintenance intensive to keep it looking nice. I use a makita grinder and/or a black and decker mouse for the initial work to knock down the rough stuff. For stuff like welds or anything other than flat surfaces you need to have a drill and buffing wheels to get into the crevices. It's VERY messy but it's easy and looks amazing. Look up caswell plating they sell the polishing kits. For something like a swingarm say I'll go over it with the mouse with 220 and get off the clear coating and smooth it out. Then wet sand 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, and maybe 2000 but not necessary and then hand rub out with mothers and then again with a good wax. You can also finish with the drill and polishing wheel. You need to completely sand out any scratches, etc left by the previous grit before moving on to the next finer grit. Again it's tedious but gets easier and if done properly will look like chrome. YES you can get carried away. I spent over a year doing almost everything on a gixxer I had, BUT it did look amazing.

 

Ok, i did my cluch cover. Ill post pics eventually. But, its not perfect. Although... I did see that the more time u spend on 100-400 grits the better it will turn out. It seemed like there wasnt a problem skipping the 600 and 1500.

I went 100-220-400-800-1000-clean-polish-wax. Turned out real well except for the places that had too much rash to sand. Mothers is the shiz btw.

 

I noticed that after 600 you could spend less time but that meant using more grits to get the scratches out. 2000 really got a good shine even before the polish. I hardly used any polish but that stuff really does bring out the shine!

The skin is coming back quite well on my right thumb!

 

Yah, my girl loves my smooth hands. LOL.