Anyone ever hand polished a frame?

[liamconnolly]

Okay, so after being impressed by my crank polishing efforts last month, my eyes have widened and I have been thinking about taking on a whole frame.

The other option was a respray but I always feel that unless in the original colours it may not look too hot.

I expect that anyone who has done it will advise against it due to the difficulties of polishing in the detail, but if you have successfully managed it can you let me know how you got on.

Conversely if anyone knows a place that is a cheap as chips that can machine polish let me know as this is the more likely route.

Ta,

Liam

 

[spacehopper]

did my GT RTS with plenty of wet and dry then finished it off with Autosol

the rear end was painted but that came off eventually using nitromors..

can be quite a lengthy process but once its done its well worth the effort to be able to stand back and say... i did that!

much more rewarding than just handing someone a wad of cash and getting them to do it for you!

 

[velomaniac]

Talk to KAISER, if he can't polish it, he gets moody :roll:

 

[Xesh]

I did my Cannondale Delta V2000 once. Took me about 2 weeks due to the complex frame shape. It came out really nice although, for some reason I haven't yet determined, the welds ended up being a gunmetal colour (like the polished XTR but lighter). :? The only thing was I needed to polish it every couple of weeks to keep it shiny. It may have been better to seal it with some lacquer but I didn't have the money at the time. Also because it was 6061, rather than 7005, it wasn't exactly corrosion resistant.

 

[lewis1641]

i have started my rts frame and i am regretting it already!it is covered with tiny imperfections which i didnt even notice before i started but now i have they are sticking out like a sore thumb. it means i am having to go quite coarse on the wet n dry to smooth them out which means its going to take a lot longer to get shiney.

does everyone else do it by hand too?

as far sealing the bare metal, i would recomend waxing the frame regularly to seal the shine. lacquer will look good for a while but will eventually start to lift. moinsture will get underneath it and turn the aluminium white. you wont be able to polish it as its beneath the lacquer.

just look at car wheels with a polished lip. the ones that are lacquered look far worse than the bare ones.

dave

 

[FairfaxPat]

My Funk is polished. I polish it with medium steel wool and soapy water and it makes the aluminum frame and bits shine like chrome. After polishing, I coat it with car wax to preserve the shine-it lasts about 3-4 months and then repeat. I was originally going to use some metal polish like Simichrome, but I asked Charlie Cunningham what he used on his frames and he said to just use steel wool and soapy water and it works great and is cheap to boot!

 

[SeeingisBelievingGTMuseum]

Have probably done near 100 maybe more. Yes it's a lot of hand work but there are methods that speed it up and leave a better finished product.

 

[LTS Biker]

You need to like it. I have done a few, my own GT LTS and RTS and Martin's Zaskar. It's nice to see a good result, but takes hours.
The LTS was a lot of work, also did the rough spots liek cable rub, with very fine sandpaper, afterwards with polising paste.
And a 10 year old frame looked after hours of polishing:

 

[boy"O"boy]

Still doing mine

.....it's taken 8 weeks so far but in all honesty I've put in less than 10hrs graft on it.

Here's a link.....page 2 shows the polishing technique I used.

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48557

Cheers,
boy"O"boy