polishing up arayas?

[danielson]

its a bit of a dumb question but ive got some silver araya aero rims that need polishing up a bit. can i use autosol? or what is the best stuff to use? any recomendations? brake pad mark need to come off too. any help would be appreciated..... thanks..

[etriedes]

Check out

http://www.vintagebmx.com/community/index.php'showtopic=4005471&st=0

and

http://thepolishingshop.co.uk/acatalog/Polishing_Guide.html

Or ask "animal" or "n2cus"  for advice

Cheers
Si

[mark 2]

I just did some last week myself - they'll have a clear coating of annodizing on so that'll need removing first. I polished the brake rub off first and it was leaving a line where the mirror bit you just polished meets the silver original finish and doesn't quite match. So gets some oven pride and chuck them in the bag for about 20 mins rubbing them about. Then I polished the lot (mainly the walls) with a bench grinder and polishing mop, takes a while.... And then went at it with the autosol.

I'm a bit shit with stuff like that  and lack patience but was determined to resto the whole bike without any help.

For the sake of £30ish I'd get someone else to do it next time. 

[Glynnyboy]

I stripped these with oven pride. Popped them in the bag and just sat as though i was holding a steering wheel driving around for about 20 mins. Didn't want to leave them.
Then gave them a light rub down with wet n dry paper after that going through the three mops in the budget polishing kit from the above link.
I could have got them better but they were for racing on so had to keep as strong as possible.

[customparts]

I can help you with this problem if you go to the second page on the anodising price list in the tech section you will see some of the work I have done. For £20 its mess free for you and you get the results you want. It will probably cost ya more to buy all the stuff to polish it ya self. I don't want to put people off but I would not recommend stripping aluminium for 20 mins in a solution, you lose a lot of metal and if ya don't get all sticky and other hard to remove bits off the solution disolves the aluminium around the crap making it hard to polish.
I'm not saying this to gain work as I have enough but I'm looking out for you guys

anyway let me know if you are interested

cheers
Paul

[mark 2]

I can help you with this problem if you go to the second page on the anodising price list in the tech section you will see some of the work I have done. For £20 its mess free for you and you get the results you want. It will probably cost ya more to buy all the stuff to polish it ya self. I don't want to put people off but I would not recommend stripping aluminium for 20 mins in a solution, you lose a lot of metal and if ya don't get all sticky and other hard to remove bits off the solution disolves the aluminium around the crap making it hard to polish.
I'm not saying this to gain work as I have enough but I'm looking out for you guys

anyway let me know if you are interested

cheers
Paul

That's what I was getting at, I know Paul does a first rate professional job from what I've seen, charges just £20 (trust me , that's cheap, £40 at my chromers, £30 p/ hour), add a few quid for 2 way postage and it's all done for you. I just had a bee in my bonnet about doing the bike myself but it's a pain in the arse to do and end up with an amateurish result.

[russ j]

I stripped these using caustic soda,then took all the brake wear out of them starting with a 350 grade working up to a 1200 grade wet/dry.Then polished them up starting with a Sisal mop with the Brown compound,then onto the White stitch mop with the Green compound then onto the G mop with the Blue compound and the finally finishing with the Pink compound with another G mop.

A lot of work but well worth the results.But as said above,the amount of time it took me (about 3hrs a wheel  ) it would have been more cost effective to send them to Paul at CCA.....

Anyway here's my wheels:




I did haver them annodised Blue afterwards at CCA:







and now they sit proudly on this (not to everyones taste on here i know :)



Russ.....

[daz bmx it!]

Mint work there Russ I'm far to lazy to spend hours on stuff anymore CCA is probably my only option now