Topic: Tried my hand at polishing today. Pleased with my initial results

[xnoahx]

Took my brake levers off and spent some time getting them polished up on my new to me 8" bench grinder/buffer.  Initially I just hit them with the buffing wheel but wasnt too pleased with the results.  Then I went out and got some sand paper and worked my way up to 2000 grit on the parts.  Much better result after all that on the buffing wheel.  Plan to try the fork legs tomorrow.Ill try to get some before and after pics for that one.

[bhh1989]

What color polish are you using? I've found it makes a difference after the sandings to go up polish grades as well. I usually use red first then blue as the final polish (sears was having a clearance so I bought like 20 sticks of various grades haha)

[srbakker]

Let's see the results!

[iron_worker]

I believe black cuts even faster than red.

I just bought a kit for my drill this weekend and played around a bit on some chrome. Can't really polish out scratches with it but it cleans up staining and hazing very well.

IW

[xnoahx]

I have red for the initial polish and white for the final.  I need to get some more wheels but I haven't been able to find any around me in the 8" diameter with the 5/8" arbor I need.  And I have noticed a big improvement in applying small amounts of the compound very often rather than more compound less often.

[Really?]

To me the fork legs and the part that holds the brake were the most difficult.  The levers and the front brake arm were super easy. 

There are tons of casting marks in the fork legs.  I ended up dropping down to a file to get a bunch of those out and to speed things up before going back to the sandpaper and to the rouge.  Also, it is like there is something a little different about the metal making it just that much harder to bring up to a really nice shine.

[xnoahx]

SO I did one leg today.  Like Timed Out said, plenty of casting marks but I left them alone mostly.  I just want my forks to look a bit nicer than they did.  Heres a few pics
This is the fork after sanding before polishing.  I almost could have been happy running them like this compared to how it looked before


This is the polished result


And this is the left side fork to give an idea of the starting condition.  Sorry for the bad lighting.

[srbakker]

Looking good!

[mark52]

Looks good xnoahx, any tips you would like to share?

[xnoahx]

After doing the other fork leg last night I would say be sure to sand out all the scratches from the initial sanding.  I started on the second leg with 100 grit then moved to 220, 600, 1000, 2000.  I should have either spent more time with the 220 or maybe had a 150 in between.  I just couldnt get the finial polish to look as good on it and I think it was because of the rough initial sanding.

[mono]

looks good!

but i think you're right - the 100grit is probably too aggressive for aluminum.  i always start with 220 and work my way up from there.