I learned off a tech right here on the ol Hamb years ago. Not sure who posted it but you might try searching the archives. The one I'm talking about the guy took an old set of MT valve covers looking raoched out to a mirror finish..
It depends how nice you want them and how much labor you willing to expend on them. You will probably spend upwards of $75 on little buffing accessories, sandpaper and several different types of polishing compounds and still have so-so results or you can find a professional polisher and spend $75-200 and they will be show quality. If they are die-cast aluminum (and I think those are) it’s a little harder to get that show shine on them at home. They seem to need the power of professional grade buffers. I’m sure there is a comprehensive thread on here telling you how to get professional results at home. You just need luck to hit on the correct search term. Try wet sanding with 600-800 grit, then a paste compound like Semi-chrome or Mother’s, then I use Wax Depot liquid metal polish or Quick Glo to finish. If you have buffs for an electric drill that sometimes works better than just fingers. Good luck.
Right on however, you didn't mention that your hands, face and all your clothes will be black when you get done.
Polishing always begins with sanding to get as many of the imperfections out as possible. Use the finest sandpaper that will get the job done. Continue using finer and finer sandpaper. Use spiral rolls and whatever other small tools you need to get in the crevices. At some point you'll be wanting to switch from dry sanding to wet sanding. Keep using a finer and finer grit until you get to about 2000 grit. At this point the surface should already be quite shiny. Now switch to rubbing and Polishing compounds and buffing wheels. Be careful not to catch the part on the buffing wheel... it'll tear it out of your hands and throw it across the shop... after ricocheting off your face. Do more research before you start. Watch some YouTube videos to see how it's done. Have fun. Be careful. Good luck. I hope your fingerprints grow back quickly. LOL
I don't know if anyone else has ever noticed this...but regardless of how you type in the ***le of a new thread, the header always posts with ALL capital letters.
I know a guy who took an intake manifold to a shop to be polished without first asking for a quote. He ****ped his pantaloons when they finished and the cost to polish was way more than the intake itself was worth. Do it yourself. I put a polishing wheel on a bolt, put it in my 1/2" drill, stuck my drill in my bench vice, bought some polishing compound and did it myself. If the valve cover was already polished at one time, it will be (or should be) easy. If there are scratches, you'll need to wet sand them out first. I practiced on an aluminum alternator body first. I also did my own intake manifold and that was a LOT of work due to the shape. I did it in my ba*****t. I thought it looked great until I brought it outside into natural light and WOW ... not so great, still a lot of scratches. I then sanded it outside then re-polished and it looked great. Would I ever do an intake again? Nope. Would I freshen up an old valve cover or two? Absolutely.
Polish/polish - Weird word, it's the only word in the English language that changes pronunciation when it is capitalized.
I Found it w a google search but not sure how to share a link so here is a screenshot. Im sure one of my Hamb brethren can link it for ya.
you need a buffing wheel on a grinder that won't stall out when you lean into it. I have a Jet on a HF stand that works. It's a few hundred $ now.
Once polished, how long will it stay that way, I always find aluminum does stay shinny as long as I would like it to!
The only time I use sandpaper is to level a wavy surface to get it flat or to remove deep scratches or gouges. Once I have the right 'shape', I then switch to 2" roloc 'scotchbrite' type discs on a cheap HF angle-head air die grinder. These are a huge time-saver, reducing pre-polish prep by literally hours. These come in four 'grits'; brown, only use these if you need to remove a fair amount of material. If you have a rough-cast part, these work very well at smoothing it. Then maroon, good for removing pitting, larger scratches or light re-shaping but otherwise use sparingly. Blue is the one you'll use the most, this will remove 'dead' metal quickly without damaging contours, as well as minor paint residue. Once you've removed all traces of scratches from the prior discs/paper, switch to gray discs which will leave a semi-polished satin finish. Now you can use a buffing wheel, a sewn cotton buff with red rouge compound. Follow up with a loose cotton buff and white rouge for a mirror finish. A few pics of the process... The face has been hit with a 600 grit disc on a 6" air sander to level the face and remove deep scratches. After the roloc discs. This is about 15 minutes worth of time. I used two blues and two grays to do this. I found that buying the discs in bulk saves a lot of money. I can't emphasize enough how much time these save during the prep. Finished part. Again, about 15 minutes worth of buffing. This will take a tool investment, and I use a 1.5HP 3450 rpm Baldor Buffer with 10" buffs. A smaller and/or slower buffer will increase the buffing time needed. I restored all of these parts in about 8 hours and used about $20 worth of consumables. There are some 'tricks' for getting into different places and if you get too heavy-handed with the discs they will tend to 'smear', particularly the finer grit ones. I've found that cutting down the backing 'plate' on the disc arbor so the discs can flex allows you to 'blend' things much better.
I've done many sets by hand, what happened to the HAMB here, you can still do stuff yourself if you're willing to put sweat equity into it. I wet sand starting usually with 220, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1000, then polish with blue Wenol using an old t-shirt. If the 220 doesn't take out some imperfections then drop down to 180, your finger tips will get dark gray but you're not going to be covered head to toe.
The last set that I had done I sent in with some parts I wanted to have chrome plated. They weren’t too bad I just wanted them a little nicer. He charged me $75 for the pair and they looked way better than new. Lately, I just want them to look age appropriate, not perfect, just old but maintained.
I love finned alum high shin covers. Doing it your self is not EZ,but a big save $. Job out shin up-cost a lot by pro!. There are some nice new alum finned covers around,that come shinned up nice as shipped! You can now buy them for very close to what it cost$ too shin your old set. Around $200
I got crusty old aluminum covers for my work truck but wasn't about to polish so just painted them orange. Probably look pretty good with the fins polished.
Alright now the tech thread I mentioned is on the main board and still as good as ever. The thing about the outlay of cash up front for tools and polish ect... is now you can continue to punish... er I mean polish all of your stuff. Ive done several sets of valve covers, some wheels, club plaques and all kinda small ****.. Its work but the rewards are there for you to be proud of and all the world to see ! Ive always appreciated the DIY mentality here. Thanks to @Just Gary for sharing the process with us !
I’m still a ****er for cool old polished, finned aluminum parts. I’ve got a Baldor powered buffer with two 10” wheels that I use sometimes but I was surprised how much better the chrome shop guys did even though I have all of the different wheels and compounds. I bought the buffer years ago to keep the aluminum stuff on my flatbottom ski boat nice, I certainly couldn’t afford to have all that stuff touched up between seasons. Getting polished aluminum to look nice and keeping it looking nice is a never ending task. So Steveleb, have enough info? What are you gonna do. What are you building?
I’ve polished thousands of wheels, used to do highway trucks, nothing difficult about it, just plain old hard work.
Just did these. Not rocket science, just a lot of work. I usually would start with 400 grit, these were so bad I used 180. I don't have a dedicated buffer, just mount the buffs on my bench grinder. If your motor will swing a 10 inch buff instead of a six inch you'll cut your time way down. I also will stack a couple of buffs on the grinder to make a wider one.
The Jalopy Journal
