Polishing aluminium

I have a rocker cover in cast aluminium (alloy presumably) which is very dull and tatty-looking, but otherwise fine. Anyone know of a way of polishing this up to improve the look of the engine bay?

Rob Graham

Reply to
robgraham
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You can do it yourself with grinding paste & cloth wheels on a drill or just get it tumble polished by your local metal finishers.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

===============================================

Can't go wrong with good old Solvol Autosol.

Reply to
Les Ross

Missus used Maguires Next Gen.

Reply to
Conor

Funny you should say that Les as our daughter recently introduced some guys she is working with to the wonders of Autosol (she was recently using it when we were tidying up my old Honda CB 'Two Fifty' and she was impressed how well it worked).

In spite of them all being 'bikers', none of them had heard of it and once she had started on one of their bikes, the rest wanted a go. ;-)

The bad news for me is the missus was talking today about (me) getting her XV750 Virago out and MOT'd and sorted for the road again for her.

It's got quite a bit of chrome / ally on it so that's gonna mean quite a few tubes of Autosol ... :-(

All the best ..

T i m

Reply to
T i m

Post edited for accuracy.

Reply to
SteveH

;-)

You might be right Steve, if I DON'T sort her bike out!

All the best ..

T i m

Reply to
T i m

The rocker cover may have never had a high finish - so emery cloth may be the starting point before progressing to a polish.

Reply to
John

That's how we started on the 'ally' bits on this little Honda John. We got rid of the remains of the lacquer and the corrosion with #350 >

#1200 wet_n_dry (wet) then finished off with the Autosol.

I still have some bits to do (bits that need real removal to get at properly) so when at a Kitcar show recently I bought one of the mini polishing mop / paste kits but not tried it as yet.

The ally (Mazak?) stays reasonably bright for quite a while (even on a motorbike kept outside) and once polished seems quite easy to bring back to a shine with more Autosol.

All the best ..

T i m

Reply to
T i m

Yes, that's a fact. I suppose what I'm after is a return to the original condition, not a mirror-like shine that probably wasn't there originally.

Thanks to all for your inputs.

Rob

Reply to
robgraham
[...]

Not in the last 47 years of car ownership, no.

u.r.c.m are noted for being a really tolerant ng for OT threads, but I really fail to see why this was posted here.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

Don't know what you're missing!

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Slatts

Reply to
Sla#s

Very nice, but I can't see any aluminum (sic) parts there that need the paint removed;-)

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

Shooosh ... If you look hard you will find I've covered lots of ally with paint, that most other folk polish...

Slatts

Reply to
Sla#s
[...]

But presumably *you* don't want to remove it!

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

Baking soda etches aluminium.

Reply to
Windmill

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