You need a buffing tool and the proper compound. Your tool needs to be small but powerfull life a die grinder, Pneumatic. Or maybe electric . A dremmel you will burn up. Alot of work. Or there are polishes that may clean it a bit.
I have a 16 year old motorcycle whose aluminum parts seem to be corroding. I'm wonder if there is any way to polish this up and prevent it from happening again.
Here are a couple of pictures to show the mess
What you've got appears to be aluminum that was polished and then coated with clear laquer. The laquer is what is failing. You will need to strip the parts completely, polish them with a buffing wheel and compound, and then, if you wish, recoat them with laquer. I would recommend that you just strip and polish them, without recoating them.
BB
On Fri, 2 Jul 2004 06:28:19 -0700, Lex wrote (in article ):
The cause is the fact that the aluminum you have is cast rather than forged. Forged aluminum won't oxidize (as easily? at all? don't know...)
These motorcycle parts are painted when new with a clear coat which protects them from the air. Once that coating goes away, moisture and air do their thing and you get what you have.
Notice how much of the ugliness is spotty? That is actually oxidizing (clear) paint, not oxidizing metal. If it hasn't gone all the way to the metal, rubbing out the clear coat will result in the shine returning. But where the metal is now unprotected, you must paint it again. If the oxidizing has gone all the way to the metal, polishing might help.
Polishing is the only choice I know of to get them shining again, but you will still have some oxide in the grain of the metal which is very hard to get out and will still show.
Focus on one part and see how good you can get it to look, then attack the rest of the bike if you're satisfied.
Good luck,
On 02 Jul 2004 15:26:01 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.comtosspam (Joe Bobst) wrote:
>
Appearance of the bike maybe...
Mike
This is an issue on many older vehicles.
The original aluminum was first machined to look pretty. Then it was coated with a polymer ("clear coat") to retain the surface quality. The polymer coating eventually gets pinhole leaks, and salts get trapped underneath, and corrosion sets in to the point of pitting.
Polishing won't work because the pitting is too deep. You'd just end up with a pretty polished surface mingled with lots of ugly pitted areas. Even if you had the power to grind a polish down that deep into the metal, you would just wind up with a wavy surface.
True restoration requires re-machining (lathe) down to an even surface of fresh metal, and reapplication of the polymer coating. This is not an inexpensive job.
Occasional stripping, light polishing, and recoating would prevent the severe problem from developing, if you're the neurotic maintenance type. That is what is recommended in luxury car factory maintenance manuals.
Richard J Kinch wrote in news:Xns951AAF4C23439someconundrum@216.196.97.131:
I just read in Honda Tuning magazine where they used Eagle One aluminum wheel cleaner to clean up a Honda EX tranny,made it look very nice.
Jul 94 pg.72,middle of the page picture.
Remember the days when you could just give your girlfriend an old white sock and a tube of SemiChrome? ;-)
This is Turtle.
The Clear coat is breaking down. Use a buffer and clean the clear coat paint off to a shinny finish and then clear coat it again.
TURTLE
consider sandblasting it with baking soda
put baking soda in sand blaster drum it is not to abrasive so you should wind up with a very light matte finish --then polish with buffing wheel and red rouge--get from jewelers supply--should do the trick hth
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