polishing thread?

[Laverdaroo]

A pig isnt it! Sadly Ken's OCD has knackered us

Thatss two out of the threee of us tha thave given up, Imgoing in for round 4 this afternoon, must try harder!

[Oddjob]

I've been doing it all afternoon and TBH I find it easy. You can get things looking so that you wonder if it will ever go flat and then suddenly it just starts too. It's have you got the patience to keep at it so you get to that point. I've just spent 4 hours doing the grab rails off my lads VT1100 and those were in a really bad state, now they are starting to look really nice.

Maybe you should have started with easier pieces, brake plates are hard to do, loads of stone chips etc, sprocket covers are not easy either. Clutch covers are better because they are protected by the engine so get less damage. Try a camshaft end cap and practice on that. Or a dipstick.

[Oddjob]

Thought I'd pop this up here for those members who seem to have lost hope.

How bad is a casing BEFORE you think it's beyond salvage?

I've seen some bad ones, really bad TBH, seen some on Ebay that I thought were beyond saving but lets be honest, parts are becoming harder to find. NOS parts are starting to dry up and casings when they do appear NOS are very expensive and sometimes even they show damage that detracts from the look. I bought a NOS casing last week and the seller had to reduce the price because of the lacquer peeling off, it didn't look nice TBH but at half the listed price and the fact I was going to polish it anyway I bought it.

Casings usually don't get stored well, thrown in a bucket or an old box and just left for years and years. Some, like my old cases had been chromed and you'd be forgiven for thinking they'd be good as they've already been polished before the chrome was applied but not a bit of it. If the chrome has peeled and then left the damage to the alloy underneath can be severe.

I recently decided to do a CB550F clutch cover, I have 4-5 of them so I went to the box they hide in and just pulled one out, completely at random, I thought doing it that way would avoid any suggestion of picking the best one etc. It was upside down in the box, I'd washed it in petrol and the inside was facing me, looks ok, nice and clean inside, yep that'll do. Jesus what a bad choice, worse case I'd ever seen except for the one I sanded right through but that was before I realised just how bad they can get. If yours has a sort of rash on the surface, like a bad skin condition, black marks all over it or worse some sort of fur growing then you're in for a BAD time trying to polish that baby.

The 550 case is about 50% done and coming on, hours and hours still to be spent on that one but I also had a rotor casing off a 500. Finding one these days without gravel rash where it's gone down the road is hard, this was my old one, been chromed, in fact here's a pic of it as the bike was being restored.



I'd replaced it when the chrome started to peel after a winter using the bike and road salt etc. It wasn't a pretty sight but it was an undamaged case so worth keeping I reckoned.

Had the chrome removed and that revealed all the damage done. Believe me, this case ain't pretty, yet.

So after sitting in a box for a year or so I finally decided to have a go and salvage it. I used my new secret weapons, if they can get this case back to acceptable then they can do any case. I won't bore you with loads of pics as TBH I didn't bother taking any at first, I really thought this was heading for the bin. However it's really coming on so here's a sneak preview.

This is the sort of damage I mean, really deep pits, and this is after working on these areas for some time.







Still working on those but they are starting to disappear.

However this post is about the top section of the rotor cover, the bit everyone sees first, the casing has been sanded and this has revealed the damage, top surface usually gets away with a lot but not this time.

Before.





Now professional polishers show pics of damage on their websites BUT they don't tend to show after shots, just carefully posed pics of complete casings without showing where they've completely failed to fix anything, these shots IMO are excuses, here's what you gave us to start with, of course we are not magicians so don't expect a great finish everywhere. Not, this is the damage and look how good we are, it's all gone away.

So this time I thought, lets show before and after pics.

AFTER. 2.5 hours of work on what's essentially an 8 x 1.5 inch piece of alloy. NOT polished, not been anywhere near the polishing machine, just used my new secret weapons and then finished off with some of my more normal brushes, sanded down to 1000 grit.





Now I'm no different from most members on here, if I can do this then so can you, I'm not gifted, I don't have expensive machinery, I do have patience and time and some basic tools, this means you can do the same.

Next is to finish the case, if that's possible and then polish it. I reckon I can get that back to roughly the same condition as the very first pic where it was chromed. After that, I'll probably throw if in a box for a few more years as I already have a decent rotor cover 

[Laverdaroo]

Nah,.........looks, sh@te!


 

[Sesman]

Secret weapon?

[Johnny4428]

That’s a great picture of progress on that casing. That takes great perseverance. I have battled on that front during my restorations, but I think after looking at your great work I’m prepared to give it a better shot at finishing my casings in the future. I have even ended up with different coloured soap/compounds that I don’t even know which is the fine and which is the course grades anymore. Yes “could do better” which was a familiar statement on my school report card. 🤣🤣

[Oddjob]

Phil, secret weapons refer to some new stuff I found recently, they are working out just fine but I didn't want to say what they are until I'd ran a full test and can confirm they are easy to use, give good results and are worth the extra outlay. At this point in time I'd say these are really great, they are leaving a much better surface to work on than the abrasive brushes, they aren't as versatile as the brushes and can't reach areas that the brushes can. They are also not intended to be used by a Dremel and require some work to adapt them to fit, once that's done there is no more work, all extra ones bought will fit fine.

I'll let you know once this case is finished and polished what they are, where to buy them, how to adapt them etc. Things like brake plates will be great with them, the flatter the part the better these are IMO. I need to see the polished article in my hand to say yes to them, hope that makes sense, as the sort of resident guru on this I'd feel bad saying buy these only for them to not work out and I've wasted your money.

Johnny, I think you may be starting to polish too soon, work more on the surface, that surface looks a little rough due to the camera but feel it by hand and it's like touching velvet. The buffing soap is good stuff but it's not magic, it will give you a false impression as to how good it is, it looks ok but it won't last as it's just like a coating and underneath is still the same old stuff and it soon comes back to the surface. It's like the difference between a satin finish and a mirror finish, both are polished but only one is really polished.

If you check out this site, it grades the soap on how abrasive they are. https://bolgers.co.uk/collections/buffing-polishing

Grey is the most, yellow/beige is the least IIRC, I use grey, then white as by that time the surface is like glass but does have swirls etc, after white I do the final polish with pink. It's also the choice of mop that's important, grey with a 8" felt, that combination will give you a shine very quickly, then white with a close stitched cotton mop then pink with a loose leaf cotton mop. So it goes, very hard, medium, soft. I'm going to experiment with using white with a felt mop and see if that improves the finish as I'm not totally happy with some of the marks still left. If using grey with felt don't press on too hard, it's so aggressive you can easily dig a trench.

[Sesman]

Thanks Ken.👍

[Oddjob]

Rotor case is almost fully flatted now. 99% of the pits have been removed. Only ones left are where the Honda cover would cover them anyway, I could have removed those but the metal isn't that thick there and I didn't want to ruin the case just as it was getting so close.

Final few sandings tomorrow and then maybe polish it. It's looking pretty good, lovely and flat.

[Johnny4428]

Thanks Ken for info regarding mops and soap, completely agree with what you say about polishing too soon on Surface that’s not been prepared properly. On the 750 I decided to go for the satin Finnish rather than polished surface, much easier to achieve and quite pleased with the result. Smoothed the surface then buffed with green scotchbrite wheel.

[Oddjob]

Rotor cover now completely sanded down to 1000 grit.

Ready for polishing. Not sure when I'll have a day or 2 of polishing, need the weather and to feel in the mood. Dirty job, look like a coal miner afterwards..

Front. The only place any pits are left is about 9.47 and 11.55. Both under the cover so not important.



Sides. Tried to do the same angles as the original pic so you can compare between the damage and the finished article.

[Laverdaroo]

I know the time involved so well done mate

[Oddjob]

Ordered some new felt mops as my old trusty one has decided to spin on the shaft. Felts are really not meant to be fitted to the extension shafts so it wasn't unexpected for it to start slipping. The new ones have leather centres fitted so that should help them to keep from slipping. Also trying a much harder density felt mop to see how that performs, should be here in a few days so I may have a couple of days polishing. I'll let you know how the new mops perform.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

I cant believe with the current price of electricity, that so much time is being spent on polishing.

A Dremel, even the most powerful Dremel is less than 200W, that means you can use it for 5 hours and you'll use 1 unit of electricity, that's around 16p approx. Hardly going to break the bank.

A bit last year on the cost at the moment its nearer 29p /kwh on flexible tarrrif still not that expensive though..

I'm currently in Hibernation mode with the polishing mullarky.

[Oddjob]

Mines locked at 16p till next year.