Polishing rims, etc - question

[tkurt]

I'd like to clean up my bike and want to polish up the wheel rims. There are a lot of scratches and white marks on them.
Whats the best way to do this? I tried the wet tin-foil technique, which got rid of the white blemishes but resulted in a gray cloudy streak, in this picture the middle of the rim surrounded by shiny metal:

I also picked up this 150grit nylon wheel at harbor freight. Will this work on the rims and/or engine? I'm guessing I'll get a finer grit to finish but I don't want to damage anything.

Thanks

 

[resto]

You posted an excellent pic of what a typical alloy rim looks like after about 3 decades. In particular, the "chrome-like" parts of the finish are actually what's left of the anodizing finish applied at the factory. That anodizing ALL has to come off if you are going to get a consistant smooth surface at the end.

The abrasive wheel you showed does a really good job of that. You may want to also pick up a smaller diameter wheel to be able to get in between the spokes. It can be done with 220 grit sandpaper, but takes a lot of work. Once the anodizing is off, you can go about sanding the rim to get rid of the pitting and deeper scratches. I started with 220, then progressed to 320, 400,600, and 800. Then I used a bench mounted buffing wheel with black, brown, and white buffing compounds. A lot of work but worth it in the end. A good basement winter project.

 

[650Skull]

Make sure to wear a mask, alloy, compounds and the buffing wheel bits are bad for the lungs.

 

[5twins]

The rim and most of the polished alloy parts on these bikes aren't anodized, they were clear coated after polishing at the factory. What you're seeing is that clear coat gone bad. Yes, it will require a re-polish but strip what's left of the clear coat off first with paint stripper. That will reduce the amount of sanding required a bit. Those nylon wheels are nice for wheel rims. For the final buffing, I use these small buffing wheels from HF in a die grinder .....

http://www.harborfreight.com/4-piece-buffing-kit-43657.html

 

[tkurt]

Cool, thats good to know. Thanks guys