Peugeot 979 aluminium frame polishing?

[kinners00]

Hey guys,

Got this lovely frame a few weeks ago and the aluminium particular at the front of the frame looked a little tarnished and had few marks on it that I wanted to get rid of. So from looking around on forums it seemed 1500grit sandpaper was the way forward with aluminium polish. The sandpaper has taking those marks away but it looks rather dull, brighter than before but dull when I pulled the sticker of the badge away to reveal the beautiful original state the difference is night and day as you can see from the pictures? What do I do? How on earth can I polish/sand it to that finish? In over my head, help would be appreciated very much so

Marc

 

[Midlife]

IIRC bob jackson will polish it for 110 quid

Shaun

 

[47p2]

The frame will be anodised on top so removing that would cause the metal to be open to the elements. You could have it polished & re-anodised or possibly polished, etch primed and lacquered

 

[kinners00]

Re:

Is there no way that I could do it myself?

 

[kinners00]

Re:

I mean could I buy polishing head for a drill, polish it up and clear coat? Would that work?

 

[47p2]

Not a bike frame but a car wheel, this one I polished last year, just to give you an idea of what's involved

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 not completely smooth, so a complete mirror finish would be almost impossible, plus if it was a mirror finish the lacquer would not adhere to it properly, so I am happy with my efforts. Just need to get it to the paint shop now for the painter to do his bit.

 

[Robbied196]

Re:

Oven pride is the way to go for stripping anodising. If you look around the discount stores you can pick a box up for around £2/3. Brush it on and after about a minute it will start turning to a white foam, I give it around 8 to 10 mins. The alloy will look black but that wipes off, you'll be able to see if its removed all the anodising or whether it needs a second treatment. Then you can polish with autogym, if you have a mop it should come up like a mirror. A quick re-polish once a month will keep it like that.