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Aluminium polishing.


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Timmy, it looks outstanding :thumb:

Observing what you have done with the truck on my 'puter I'm really impressed.

Of all the stuff I could find locally the best result was achieved with 3M Marine Polisher, and I'm not satisfied with it.

Not bright as hell and difficult to work with. Hand polishing is the only way. So I will try to put my hands on something more successful.

 

Edited by Vladislav

Никогда не бывает слишком много грузовиков! leversole 11.2012

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Vlad, that's a nice looking tank. I think ranch hopper is right, if it's never been polished before then you might need to sand it back first. We were lucky as most of the aluminium on our trucks was polished at the factory so it's just maintaining it. And a lot of it is trial and error. 

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Guys, my trouble with that tank was in a different ball park. It was never polished before indeed. And lots of pitting as a follow. Starting from that point I ordered one of my boys with a grinder to sand all off. He started from 120 grit but had to step back to 60. Spent no less than 3 days getting tonns of alu dust until the most of cavits were gone. Probably sanded off something like 0.3 - 0.5 mm of the wall thickness. Than he followed with all sand papers step by step. That time I went for a trip for a couple of weeks. Found him still sanding when back home! Finally he ended up with 2000 paper having almost no scratches, pitting and so on.

But when it was a time to polish that aluminium showed its character. I couldn't do anything with it by common "green" stuff and applied the mentioned above 3M paste I had very good results on Alcoa wheels. It turned out as good as you can see. Nothing better. You have to apply the paste with a piece of cloth. You start rubbing it and found it gets brighter. But the paste becomes to be a black stuff at the same time. So you have to remove all the rest of it until it dries. If you dont it sticks to the surface and the only way to remove is 2000 sand paper. Just a nightmare. 

Sure I made research on the materials to polish aluminium which are in stock overhere and found nothing to work better so far. Going to try order something else from the States or other country. But there are difficulties with importing liquid stuff. 

Никогда не бывает слишком много грузовиков! leversole 11.2012

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Vlad

We have been having same issues polishing our aluminium storage/step boxes. We have first sanded the rough metal and then used the wheels with the 4 grade polishing bars. The steps with the perforated plate and sides and edges came out with mirror like shine. However the flat plate no good, all looks like milky finish. we found out the wheels are not right for the flat or rounded plate like your tanks. wasted a lot of time and no result, awful actually.

Fortunately a guy who makes and polishes old aircraft wings showed us the way.

First you need a dual pad orbital polishing machine, baby nappies to wrap around the pads, the nappies are polishing not the pads and the nappies can be replaced and use different nappies for each compound grade. He has lent his polishing machine - cyclotoolmakers.

Buy the 4 grades of NUVITE polishing paste/compound, not cheap but excellent product and works on stainless steel as well.

We have started using the Nuvite and after 30 minutes with the polishing machine great result - we will get a mirror finish

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I worked on our aluminium storage boxes this weekend. 1 end side had a number of scratches and 3 long bumps maybe 3 inches where the internal support bracket was welded. Not happy with my previous poor result using the polishing wheel and bar polish,  I decided to re-sand the end side with a Bosch circular sander that has the velcro sand paper, got nearly all the scratches and leveled the weld bumps.

Using the cyclo double head polishing machine, separate double cotton nappies wrapped around the twin pads (to protect the pads) for each of the 4 Nuvite pastes, the final polish is mirror finish - so good I could shave with a razor. Plus a small amount of Nuvite goes a long way, expensive but damn good.

Time permitting after work hours I hope to finish 1 box next week, then I will post pictures

 

 

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I checked the web site and watched their video that to was impressive `6000 rpm buffer worked like a charm .I may order one of their polish only kits and give it a try . I have some diamond plate that i want to try to shine up that stuff just may work  i`ve never had much luck before with dp` it just seemed to labor intensive to to get any decent looking finish

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I am going to have a go with the Cyclo buffer and the Nuvite compounds on my 2 storage box lids - maybe tomorrow, if not by next Tuesday, so will post my results with a picture, test will be how the cotton nappy sheets will perform on the alloy checkerplate, if a few are chewed but the result is good then worth the effort -

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  • 4 months later...

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