[DeTomaso] Alum. Polishing advice needed.

[Denny Finn]

Message: 16

Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:54:05 -0700 (PDT)

From: Brent Stewart <bjbstewart at yahoo.com>

Subject: [DeTomaso] Alum. Polishing advice needed

To: Pantera List <DeTomaso at list.realbig.com>

Message-ID: <211137.9407.qm at web30006.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

 

Perhaps I've gotten in over my head.  I fancy myself reasonably adept at
polishing the odd aluminum bit, shift gate, valve cover, etc. and getting a
very nice shine out of it. So, i figured the back end of my CHI aluminum
heads should be no big deal - not a lot of surface area, so it should be
pretty easy.  

 

I got myself a little buffing wheel for on the end of the drill, and a new
"Power Cone" from Mothers, and some 320, 400, and 600 grit paper. Following
the process you might expect, i got it down to looking and feeling very
smooth with the 600 paper, then hooked up my buffing wheel with a little
Mothers Metal polish and went to work on what i thought would be the final
phase. 

 

Fast forward 2 hrs, and i'm still looking at a very dull, gun metal gray
finish that i can't for the life of me get a shine out of. 

 

Has anyone else ran into this unexpected bump?  any suggestions or ideas
would be helpful!!

 

brent

 

 

Hi Brent,

 

I would guess that the Mothers is for bringing back the shine to an all
ready polished surface. Not buffing out sand scratches. 

 

I think you need a more course compound. I have hand wet sanded & polished a
set of center line wheels, a Small block Chev blower manifold, etc, and I
used the different grits as described down to 1000 to 1200 grit I believe.
You want to sand it just to the point (fine enough grit) that the sand
scratches will buff out. Any more then that and you are wasting time &
energy. On my wheels I used a course wool pad (for buffing auto paint with)
and some 3M super Duty Compound. It is a courser compound with actual grit
you can feel in it when rubbed between your fingers. When I had the part in
question as shiny as I could with the first pad / Super duty combo, then I
went to a less abrasive compound & to a fine polishing wool pad. This
brought up the final shine. This was my back yard way. 

 

You can also get regular bricks of different compounds (rouge) from Eastwood
or an industrial supplier & different pads that are made for polishing
metal. You can probably get some small diameter wheels & even cone shaped
that you can get to your aluminum heads with. You take the pad & rub it
under power against the brick of compound & it heats up and transfers
compound material to your pad. Then you go to town on your head adding more
compound as needed. With the industrial metal polishing system you won't
need to sand to as fine of a grit to get the scratches to buff out. 

 

 The metal polishing pads will use the edges for the polishing surface & the
Auto Paint pad will use the face of the pads. 

We repair & polish customers stainless & aluminum trim here. 

 

I hope this is of some use to you.  

 

 Dennis Finn  #1769

Finns Auto Restoration & Custom

104 W. Main St. 

Molalla  Oregon , 97038

 

finnsautorestoration.com