Aluminium - restoration - what would you do with this?
- Thread starter FINNEY1973
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47p2
Senior Retro Guru
Aluminium is a wonderful material to work with, and very easy to polish
I needed a spare wheel for my car that would match the others and managed to find a slightly damaged wheel on ebay.
I removed the powder coating using 400 grade sandpaper on an air powered DA sander, then using 400 grade wet & dry I cleaned up the bare wheel face, then 1200 grade wet & dry to give a finer finish and eventually finishing with 2000 grade wet & dry.
I start to polish up the wheel using Solvol Autosol and the results were encouraging although not as good as I needed, so I spent another hour with the 2000 grade wet & dry to get a really smooth finish.
Click images for full size
This is the tiny marks that must be sanded out
The aim is to have a uniform even finish
Once prepared it took a maximum of 10 minutes to polish the wheel using the rotary and 10 minutes to finish by hand
The alloy used in wheel making is very hard and not completely smooth, so a complete mirror finish would be almost impossible.
I would expect the tubing on a bike frame to clean up quicker and to a higher shine than a wheel.
With the deeper scratches make sure you sand them at 90 degrees to the scratch so that you don't open them up further and you'll be amazed at how much of them will disappear from sight.
If you are going to lacquer the frame then it will need to be etch primed first.
I needed a spare wheel for my car that would match the others and managed to find a slightly damaged wheel on ebay.
I removed the powder coating using 400 grade sandpaper on an air powered DA sander, then using 400 grade wet & dry I cleaned up the bare wheel face, then 1200 grade wet & dry to give a finer finish and eventually finishing with 2000 grade wet & dry.
I start to polish up the wheel using Solvol Autosol and the results were encouraging although not as good as I needed, so I spent another hour with the 2000 grade wet & dry to get a really smooth finish.
Click images for full size
This is the tiny marks that must be sanded out
The aim is to have a uniform even finish
Once prepared it took a maximum of 10 minutes to polish the wheel using the rotary and 10 minutes to finish by hand
The alloy used in wheel making is very hard and not completely smooth, so a complete mirror finish would be almost impossible.
I would expect the tubing on a bike frame to clean up quicker and to a higher shine than a wheel.
With the deeper scratches make sure you sand them at 90 degrees to the scratch so that you don't open them up further and you'll be amazed at how much of them will disappear from sight.
If you are going to lacquer the frame then it will need to be etch primed first.
FINNEY1973
Senior Retro Guru
Steven - agreed, a ton of work, it'd only be worth a £150 when done but I like resurrecting things, may not always be financially or time viable but that's part of the fun, putting things back on the road that otherwise would be at the scrapyard.
A powdercoat would be nice, but self defeating, when I agreed to trade the bike I knew I was in for a messy and drawn out affair to get it back into semi decent shape.
Hugely impressive work & result with the wheel - the nuts & bolts of what you've done is what I want to get to, even if it does take time. Not sure I want a mirror finish as impressive as that but more a simple smooth and shiny finish will do.
A powdercoat would be nice, but self defeating, when I agreed to trade the bike I knew I was in for a messy and drawn out affair to get it back into semi decent shape.
Hugely impressive work & result with the wheel - the nuts & bolts of what you've done is what I want to get to, even if it does take time. Not sure I want a mirror finish as impressive as that but more a simple smooth and shiny finish will do.
Robbied196
Senior Retro Guru
I'd go for a polishing mop, three grades of cutting compound from course to fine, then finish with autosol. It should come up like a mirror but you'll probably loose the decals.
FINNEY1973
Senior Retro Guru
Robbied196":1lnumk9m said:
I did consider that but questioned whether a mop would get rid of fairly deep cuts and oxidised spots? This frame is in (close up) pretty bad shape. It looks like someone has gone at it with couse sandpaper to remove the oxidation, and made a bodge of it. Years of sitting in a damp garage haven't helped, the rear tyre came apart in my hand as I took it of the rim!
I've just ordered a whole range of graded sandpapers for a mouse type sander. The advert says metal polishing and glass cleaning so I assume they are relatively sympathetic to use. I was going to use some autoglym cutting compound in the first instance before working through to autosol / mothers mag. Seem like a reasonble idea if i'm gentle?
No drama on the decals, I'll be getting new ones anyway.
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drill and one of these
Takes about half an hour and leaves you with a brush aluminium finish. Plus, the steel wire hardens the aluimnium ( a few microns outer layer) as it brushes in a similar way to ball burnishing leaving you a slightly more resilient finish.
Sanding is messy, labourious and you'll end up with flat spots and a teeny tiny danger of thinning any butted areas too much
I have seen media blasted Cannondale frames end up with holes.
Takes about half an hour and leaves you with a brush aluminium finish. Plus, the steel wire hardens the aluimnium ( a few microns outer layer) as it brushes in a similar way to ball burnishing leaving you a slightly more resilient finish.
Sanding is messy, labourious and you'll end up with flat spots and a teeny tiny danger of thinning any butted areas too much
I have seen media blasted Cannondale frames end up with holes.
FINNEY1973
Senior Retro Guru
legrandefromage":38wv99t8 said:
Ordered a set, very much like the idea of a brushed finish, saw it on some bumpers on a hot-rod and it looked superb. Any recommendations as to how to get the effect all flowing in the same direction?
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Care is about all I can think of. Practice on a set of old bars first
FINNEY1973
Senior Retro Guru
Sound advise - I shall report back over the weekend when I've had a go.
