Coloured Polishing Compounds

[AlanB]

Got myself some polishing mops of various sizes to fit on elec drill and to use on the metal/Alum/Chrome bits - Comes with green and white bars of compound - Understand these have different abrasive strengths etc but has anyone on here used these bars and which colours are best ?

[warren3200gt]

wheel_chart.gif (15.28 KiB) Viewed 3371 times

[AlanB]

Cheers Warren - so are the shiny bits a mix of Stainless, aluminium chrome or what ? Thanks.

[warren3200gt]

According to that chart, green is for stainless which is tough stuff so assume green is fairly abrasive. I would stick to the white unless you have some corrosion to polish out.

[Fred the Zed]

Hmmm

I've got a '79 XT500 that I'm restoring. The aluminium tank is half polished and half painted but its all covered in laquer that's cracked over the years. I'm thinking about trying to polish the laquer off so I can keep the original paint and decals underneath. Any advice?

Cheers

Rich

[Garry.L]

Hmmm

I've got a '79 XT500 that I'm restoring. The aluminium tank is half polished and half painted but its all covered in laquer that's cracked over the years. I'm thinking about trying to polish the laquer off so I can keep the original paint and decals underneath. Any advice?

Cheers

Rich

Feeling Brave?...

Your problem is more the painted area than the Alloy. I'd doubt you could just 'polish' this old lacquer off, but it would be possible to wet sand to the paint underneath. But you'd need to be very careful and patient - more so if it's the original Cellulose which will doubtless be very soft and thin.

I'd start with something like a 1200+ grit and see how it goes. If you could remove the old stuff you could just mask and re-lacquer the painted area's leaving the alloy bare thus allowing a mirror polish.

[Fred the Zed]

Hmmm

I've got a '79 XT500 that I'm restoring. The aluminium tank is half polished and half painted but its all covered in laquer that's cracked over the years. I'm thinking about trying to polish the laquer off so I can keep the original paint and decals underneath. Any advice?

Cheers

Rich

Feeling Brave?...

Your problem is more the painted area than the Alloy. I'd doubt you could just 'polish' this old lacquer off, but it would be possible to wet sand to the paint underneath. But you'd need to be very careful and patient - more so if it's the original Cellulose which will doubtless be very soft and thin.

I'd start with something like a 1200+ grit and see how it goes. If you could remove the old stuff you could just mask and re-lacquer the painted area's leaving the alloy bare thus allowing a mirror polish.

Looking at it closely, it appears that only the bare alloy and the decals are laquered and not the paint. For the tenner or so a tube of polish might cost I'll have a dabble with that first and it that doesn't work, I'll try some very fine wet and dry.

Cheers

Rich