Wheel Polishing

[fatboy]

Who is polishing wheels these days? Looking for them to be nice and shinny... %)

Or a method even this idiot can follow and not ruin these bad boys.

 

[tasker]

watching as i have one to do

 

[fatboy]

Want them to shine like yours!

Would like one more 15 x 10 if anyone knows of one as well.

 

[mudstud]

Mine had some corrosion on them. I started with a 1500 grit sand paper then moved to 2000 grit and finished with some Mothers aluminum polish. They turned out good. Had I not let them get so bad I think they would have polished up real well. The corrosion left spots that I could not get out. Yours look better than mine did when I started. I think yours would look good with a little elbow grease. I wet sanded them by the way.

 

[tasker]

who's mine?

 

[mudstud]

Mine didn't shine up that good

 

[Blue71]

who's mine?

The shine....,,My eyes! My eyes!

Blue71

 

[tasker]

you should see when i wax my legs! %)

 

[Yeller]

The last bad ones I did i wet sanded with 800 grit, 1200, acid washed, then 2000 grit, then many hours with a mothers ball and aluminum polish. I would never do that much work on something of mine..... added it up, if I had paid my self labor and paid for materials I could have bought a new set of wheels with money left over..... but if its a old wheel not made anymore (like you slots) its a different storry but LOTS of work.

 

[FRANKO289]

I cheat a lil ... just got this set 2 weeks ago. I post some after pix ...

http://www.mothers.com/02_products/05140_b.html


watch:
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...&mid=672BB361C826B70B68B4672BB361C826B70B68B4

 

[coachbarnes]

Here ya go...

 

[bbow]

Bunch of Cotton polishing buffs for your drill and some brown, white and red polishing compounds. Use a different pad for each color. Start out brown and work your way down to red. If they are really bad you start out with black. Finish off with mothers. This is assuming that these wheels are magnesium with no clear. Took me about 3 hours per wheel but mine were REALLY bad.

 

[FRANKO289]

send them to this guy ..

http://wheelpolish.weebly.com/

 

[stupidboy]

send them to this guy ..

http://wheelpolish.weebly.com/

Wonder if they could do my turbo-vec fins and rim edge only???

 

[fatboy]

you should see when i wax my legs! %)

I am not sure there is enough wax for those Squatch legs...;D

 

[popedaddy]

I used the flitz aluminum cleaner and then followed up with flitz polish.
Look up there products on youtube for the process - pretty simple.

its also reasonable priced on amazon. took me probably 6 hours to do them all.

im sure they could look better but for the money I think this is the easiest way to go. i never got into sanding, etc and mine looked just about like yours.

 

[fordfan]

This is still fresh on my mind because my fingers are just now about healed from polishing a set of slots. There is professional polishers that have fancy equipment and they probably do it a lot faster, but with diligence, anyone can do it.

The wheels I started with were '70s vintage Western 8.5" slots. They were in really nice shape with no curb rash or scratches. Someone had painted the slot openings black so the first step was to plastic media blast off the black so the cast would show.

I started with 320 and wet sanded until all the machine lines in the wheels were gone. I then progressed with 400, 600, 1000, 1500, and 2,000 grit paper. The wheels were actually beginning to shine with the 2,000 grit paper and the machine polisher with Flitz polish finished the job. The most time is with the first sanding to remove the machine lines and get the surface really smooth. It took me much longer than some of the others posted. I finally timed it on the last two wheels. it took me 6 to 7 hours per wheel!

The first picture is the clean wheel and the second picture in the far right is a wheel that is finished sanding, but not polished. The left wheel in the second picture is the finished product!

 

[Yeller]

^^^^Pretty close to mine, 26 hours for 4.

 

[bronconut73]

Who is polishing wheels these days? Looking for them to be nice and shinny... %)

Or a method even this idiot can follow and not ruin these bad boys.

Just remember magnesium dust is combustible.
And it is not really existinguishable ....
It is more complicated than that some one will chime in with the correct answe, just be careful firing up a stoagie during the polishing and sanding effort.
By the way all those polished slots look cool.
Did mine in the 80's. I was younger and tougher then....polishing a rough set of 4 mags is quite the job....

 

[fordguy]

there used to be a website polishmywheels but it is no longer up. he sold kits and you could also send him your wheels. did anyone who bought the kit remember what polishing materials were used?