I am look for some tips on polishing aluminum parts on my quad. The engine cases, cylinder, etc. I am looking to save 200-300$ and polish the engine myself. Has anyone else done this? Any tips/methods/commets please. Thanks.

 

I am in the process of polishing the side case on my banshee. I found a polishing kit from harbor freight tools It works in a drill press or a hand drill it consits of two polishing wheels and two different types of polish, it cost around 7 dollars, I wore out the two wheels on one side and had to buy one more kit to finish, there is a small amount of hand work that I will need to do, I have spent maybe 3 hours to this point, good luck it is kind of messy

Chet

 

start with something like 300 grit sand paper and work up to the finest you can find. you can use one of those da sanders too. You can then use buffing compound to get the final polish. I just got a catalog in the mail from sears that had all kinds of buffing and polishing tools...bits for drills and die grinders, coumpounds, wheels, etc.

whatever you do don't use a wire wheel, you will never get all the little scratches out.

 

I used "liquid sandpaper" along with some medium sandpaper to get the paint off. It comes in a large metal can.
ERIC

 

Find an Eastwoods catalog, they carry products for auto restoration and they also have quite a few polishing products, they are on the web.

 

Thanks for all the help guys...I also found this: http://www.macdizzy.com/polishing.htm Keep it coming if you have any other ideas. Thanks again.

 

sorry i dont have the url but goto yahoo and type in bright works inc. ...metal polishing,usa

 

I use steel wool. it takes some time, but there is no first, second, third to get scratches out. I use 00 fine.

 

I start off with the abrasives, then work my way through the finer grits then as far as as a finish I've found that (Neverdull)in the black can, followed up by Eagle one paste polish has worked great.you can do this by hand or snap on has a cool pnuematic polisher (at403p) & they also have a polishing kit. Dont use a die grinder or anything that turns over 5500 rpm's or you'll fry the material your working on and or burn up costy consumeables.

 

One more question, what can i use to take the paint off, or can i just start using sand paper w/o taking the paint off? Thanks.