Author Topic: My experience with parts polishing (pictures attached) (Read 11832 times)

8 Track · « **Reply #25 on:** January 03, 2006, 02:52:29 PM »

Looks really great! How much do you charge to do all of mine and where do I ship the parts to?

Jonesy · « **Reply #26 on:** January 03, 2006, 03:25:57 PM »

I did a bit more research on the compounds. Here's more detailed info (taken from a tool supplier website):

Emery Cake: Contains an emery abrasive, providing a sharp, fast cutting action for removal of rust or scale from iron, steel, or other metals.

Tripoli Brown: Brown compound for buffing aluminum, pewter, brass, copper, wood, bone, plastics, painted, and other soft surfaces.

Red Rouge: Red compound for initial buffing, cleaning for a bright luster on silver plated, gold, sterling and other precious metals.

White Rouge: White rouge buffing compound gives a bright, shiny luster to stainless steel, aluminum, iron, chrome and nickel surfaces.

Green Rouge: Green buffing compound for fine color buffing and light cleaning on all classes of metals. Produces a bright lustrous buffed surface.

Blue Rouge: Blue buffing compound for final high-luster color buffing on gold, silver, sterling, platinum, and other precious metals. Produces a bright, lustrous buffed surface.

I hope this helps...

DiscoEd · « **Reply #27 on:** January 03, 2006, 05:23:49 PM »

Great Job Raul! I can only hope that I will be as successful on my 550 project.

Regards,
DiscoEd

csendker · « **Reply #28 on:** January 04, 2006, 10:13:11 AM »

Being inspired by Raul's work, I grabbed some polishing stuff yesterday and attacked one of the float bowls on my carb rebuild project. It appears they will eventually come out looking quite nice. I plan on doing as much of the carb body, bowls and tops that my dremel setup will get to. But how do I preserve the finish? Is there some sort of clearcoat that will protect it? As they are carbs, I don't expect heat to be too much of an issue, but gasoline may be. Or should I just leave them be and plan on a seasonal touch-up?

paulages · « **Reply #29 on:** January 04, 2006, 01:21:06 PM »

lloyd (two tired) has commented on this several times, and i believe it may even be in the FAQ's somewhere under aluminum cleaning. supposedly clearcoat won't adhere to a highly polished surface. makes sense: nothing for the clearcoat to grab onto.

cbjunkie · « **Reply #30 on:** January 04, 2006, 01:31:51 PM »

hey paul - my tank bashing adventure came to a screeching halt when i figured out, the hard way, how much gd'ed trouble patching 40-50 tiny holes in a tank is...

you wouldn't know where i can get a Super Sport tank, in good shape, do ya?

cbj...

p.s. still mean to post some photos in a coupla days...

paulages · « **Reply #31 on:** January 04, 2006, 01:46:05 PM »

i've got an extra one for my 550, but i'm hanging on to it in case i want to use it for my next build instead of the K tank. they are a bit harder to come by, in the 550 at least...usual sources? have you checked the online used suppliers? you don't have anything local? where are you, by the way? here in portland, craigslist.org is a great source for finding things. you can post for free in the classifieds and then hope something turns up.

i'm stripping my tank right now. i bought bondo body filler, but it seems like maybe i bought the wrong product. does it all have to be mixed in really small quantities? seems like years ago when i was helping a buddy with a '64 Plymouth Valiant restoration, we used something different. i couldn't tell what the hell the differences were between all of the bondo products at the store. they had different names and product numbers, but no real explanation of optimal uses for each.

cbjunkie · « **Reply #32 on:** January 04, 2006, 01:56:36 PM »

well, my experience is not with bondo, but with a similar product used for repairing stone and tile - i popped my bondo cherry this weekend, but i swear it smells and acts EXACTLY like the stuff i used to repair sinktop vanities and kitchen counters with...

i think the mixing issue has to do with curing time. i noticed that if i mixed the amount as proscribed i had about 5-8 minutes of working time - so, i lessened the amount of fixer, not by much, and gained myself a little more time - this is something i used to do when working with Akemi (the stone bondo)

or, just mix a huge batch and slather the #$%* on...

you can always sand it back off. ha-ha...

i do have C-list - but in St. Louis it ain't no great shakes unless you want anonymous trailer sex. yay.

cbj...

Raul CB750K1 · « **Reply #33 on:** January 04, 2006, 03:17:17 PM »

Regarding the carb polishing, I don't plan to do it. I think the carb body is made from a different alloy than the cases, and I'm afraid of breaking one. Carb cleaner does a good job with them, and they are a delicate piece of engineering so I rather don't put them in contact with the spinning wheel. Just my 2 euro cents...

Raul

csendker · « **Reply #34 on:** January 04, 2006, 04:49:19 PM »

Good point on the delicate nature of the carbs. I'm using a dremel with what looks like a scrubby pad wheel to clean off the crud, then a cotton wheel with a bit of paste. The carb dip has cleaned them up for the most part, but there's a bunch of aluminum oxide and old flaky stuff left here and there. I'm not looking for a mirror finish, just cleaning up the most visible parts. I guess I'll just live with a cleaner look and learn to love that petina.

csendker · « **Reply #35 on:** January 04, 2006, 06:53:08 PM »

Wo-hoo! Things to do while waiting on the carb dip. 10 minutes with the dremel. First the coarse 'scrubby' wheel to grind the crud off, then the fine 'scrubby wheel', then some polish and a cotton wheel. Wash off and looks waaaay better than before.

78 k550 · « **Reply #36 on:** January 04, 2006, 07:35:18 PM »

Here is how I'm doing a set I have. This is just rubbing compound and Mothers aluminum and mag cleaner.

Paul

Kelvin8 · « **Reply #37 on:** January 04, 2006, 08:14:59 PM »

Time to get out the bench grinder --that my father bought and never used-- and put the polishing wheels on it. Nice.

Kelvin

cbjunkie · « **Reply #38 on:** January 04, 2006, 08:18:01 PM »

buddy of mine warned me about rubbing off the zinc plating on steel parts??? is that true? then you have to re-plate them?

csendker · « **Reply #39 on:** January 04, 2006, 08:18:47 PM »

78 k550: looks great. Depending on how long the soak is, I may end up with a similar mirror finish...

csendker · « **Reply #40 on:** January 04, 2006, 08:23:38 PM »

Zinc plating on steel = galvanized. Steel will rust if left alone, the galvanizing protects the steel (so does paint, etc.). Mother nature has aluminum covered solo with the patina that forms, sealing and preventing further degredation, similar to copper but not green. Comprimizing the zinc coating on steel will put it at risk. This includes scratches and the damage when nuts/bolts/screws are tightened against it.

Raul CB750K1 · « **Reply #41 on:** January 05, 2006, 12:26:37 AM »

Csendker, that float bowl look much better now!!! Well, I should rephrase my last comment, as my carbs are badly stained but not to that extent. Therefore, carb cleaner will do. But if they are like yours, a little polishing is mandatory.

DiscoEd · « **Reply #42 on:** March 18, 2006, 06:39:32 PM »

Hi Guys, I'm just revisiting this thread again.

I was wondering if anyone has suggestions about how to get into tight corners. I'm in the process of cleaning up the engine case on my CB550 K1. I bought one of those 3m Scotch-Brite wheels and that seems to take the crust off. The problem is that it is 4" in diameter so you can't get it in the tight spots. I was looking for some small wire wheels for the dremel but I haven't been able to find anything locally.

I'd really like to get all the rough stuff off so I could move on to polishing. Does anyone have any other suggestions that I could try?

Regards,
DiscoEd

mrbreeze · « **Reply #43 on:** March 18, 2006, 10:31:36 PM »

DREMILL!!!!

crazypj · « **Reply #44 on:** March 19, 2006, 05:39:15 AM »

My father was a metal polisher most of his life. He made me work with him one summer vacation so I wouldnt do it for a living ( it worked) Its a dirty, smelly job polishing aluminium. You have done an awsome job on those covers, I know how much work is involved.
PJ

DiscoEd · « **Reply #45 on:** March 19, 2006, 07:30:11 AM »

Quote from: mrbreeze on March 18, 2006, 10:31:36 PM

DREMILL!!!!

Yep, that's what I was thinking too. I just can't find any darn wheels available locally out here in the sticks. I guess I'll have to find somewhere to order them from.

Regards,
DiscoEd

csendker · « **Reply #46 on:** March 19, 2006, 08:39:33 AM »

Now that K-mart & Sears are one, I've found that my local K-mart has begun to stock Craftsman tools. The Craftsman package has two mini-scrubby wheels for the Dermel, fine & coarse. They may be available on-line too (#53164). Wally-world has Dremel stuff too.

DiscoEd · « **Reply #47 on:** March 19, 2006, 08:03:11 PM »

O.k. so after a bit of moral struggling...

I jumped into the car and made the long trek to Sears.

Below is what I found...

The abrasive buffs (953164) were really very useful to me. I should have got a few packages of them as I already used up one of them. But it did a nice job cleaning the crust of the aluminum.

The conical wire brush (925039) was also helpful for getting into the tight corners, etc.

After I did some work with the stuff shown here, I hit the engine case with the buffing wheel and the white compound. Man! it's really looking promising!

When I get done nobody is going to beleive that the bike is 31 years old.

Thanks again guys for all of the great suggestions.

Buber · « **Reply #48 on:** July 18, 2006, 05:41:04 AM »

Hi everybody!

I'm farily new here, but i have my bike for last, ehmmm, 8 years? Nevertheless, this upcoming winter will be a cleaning winter, and after searching around fr a best way to clean aluminium i found this:

http://junak.ekoma.pl/gallery/album07

This is a link to a photo gallery of a cleaning of some old polish bike (I'm Polish), very popular in 60' in my country. So to get it short - you wash them in an ld model washmachine, just plain washing powedr and hot water. Important! You rather can't do it in a tumble machine. Guys were using an old model, like a tub with a whirling wheel at the bottom, so it spins water around, and the parts were hanging by the wire in the water (parts were not spining).
Why to say all this? Well, this seems pretty thorough, and (more importantly to me) seems very unintrusive. Just flush it well, and dry afetrwards, and apply a coat of oil.

Of course you can go after and polish all you want, but this way seems to me to get the parts pretty clean. Aha, "przed" means before, and "po" means afetr, but i believe this is self-explanatory

Just thought that it's interesting way to clean your engine in your backyard, without those blasting chambers....

regards!

puppytrax · « **Reply #49 on:** July 18, 2006, 08:50:31 AM »

Quote from: paulages on January 04, 2006, 01:21:06 PM

lloyd (two tired) has commented on this several times, and i believe it may even be in the FAQ's somewhere under aluminum cleaning. supposedly clearcoat won't adhere to a highly polished surface. makes sense: nothing for the clearcoat to grab onto.

If that is true, then why did Honda do it in the first place?? The OEM clear-over-polished-Aluminum has stood up for many years. I think it was probably clear lacquer rather than enamel; more impervious to gas + oil, but still vulnerable to ultra-violet, ozone, and just general oxidation (same as auto paints).

(It has also been my belief that Honda dipped all their Phillips head screws in clear lacquer when assembling the engine...)

Excellent writeup. I don't see any Karma button, or I'd use it.

I had tried to use my 6" buffer on my fork lowers, but forgot about removing the old clearcoat. I was also using white compound with a cotton wheel; works good on brass & stainless, but not on Aluminum (I didn't sand). I'll try again when I have more time.

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Author Topic: My experience with parts polishing (pictures attached) (Read 11832 times)

Kelvin8