Need help, want to polish my triumph cases...how? what? help

I'm tearing apart my triumph basket case tomorrow to rebuild the bottom end, and the cases look a little rough, at first I was going to use some high temp tractor paint on them, or barrel paint, but I think that i'm just going to polish them.

what do I need to get as far as rouge and tools, etc.

I have a drill, dremel, angle grinder, and bench grinder, and a lot of elbow grease. it doesnt need to be a spectacular job.

what do i need to get and what are the steps involved. prefable with the tools i have to work with. also, where can i get what i need to get.

 

I polished the aluminium intake manifold on my flattie a coupla years back with my drill. I bought a few main components:

I bought polishing wheels to chuck on the drill. They look just like a bolt but have a left hand thread on them. They bolt onto a cloth wheel. I bought a tonne of these in different sizes to get in all the nooks and crannies. Then i got both a coarse and a fine polishing compound. These came in a the shape of a big ingot looking brick.

Then you just turn the drill on wiht the wheel chucked into it, whack it in the compund till it melts it onto the wheel, then hit it on the subject!! Move it around, then switch to the finer one once you have hit the whole lot wiht the coarse one. Worked pretty good on my manifold so I dont see why it wouldnt work on anyhting else. You can even get those wheels in like a 6" diameter to whack on a bench grinder as well. I used the drill as it was easier and cheaper. Now I have no idea where to get them in the states cos i did this in OZ. I am guessing a chrome plater could point you in the right direction..

Hope this helps...

Paul

 

Enlgish motorcycle cases are different fram car ali for some reason but they will come up real nice if you follow these steps.First give them a going over with 400 wet and dry to get out the deep gouges and pits keep the work wet and use a circular motion at all times,also keep moving over the work and never concentrate on one spot too long.Next once you are happy with the overall scratch removal go over with 800 wet n dry then 1000.By this time they should look quite nice with only real fine scratches in.the next step will be some hard hand work with a piece of old denim and some paint cutting compound like t-cut the stuff that brings your paint back up when it's faded.now you have to rub like hell and it will take you an age but don't give up because hand finished cases look far far better than machine finished ones.I tend to screw the cases when i do them to a piece of marine ply to keep them still whilst i'm doing them if you look at my post with my old cafe racer all the ali was hand polished on it........Marq

 

oh, ok then Well, just follow my steps if you ever need to polish an aluminium flathead manifold I guess then

 

Is polishers book online somewhere? A link to it in the tech-o-matic perhaps? I'm on the road, so don't have it handy...

I tend to do like Marq said for my small stuff - just did a quick job on my Norton cases - just enough so they don't look crap - they sure don't look near as good as Marq's stuff, but good enough...I'm just lazy though...

 

the drill motor is a good idea if it has alot of rpm's. atleast 10,000 to 12,000 rpms. the compound that you use is pretty hard, so it takes a lot of power to get the abrassive on the polishing wheel. the bench grinder is really good for bigger flat pieces. they also sell a die grinder with a polishing kit that is pnuematic, but you need a good compressor with a fast recovery. look for metal polishing on the internet or in the yellow pages. i have tried several things and this should help you. good luck.

 

If anybody needs my booklet on polishing,
drop me an email.
45 pages in your email so it takes a while to download.

 

be prepared for a lot of work! the thing about polishing the cases, is if you start and do a half assed job, it will look worse than they did pre-polish! the triumph cases i did was nice material to work with, but took a lot of work to get smooth, and was still far from perfect when done. i had to start with something coarser than 400, more like 240, and make smaller steps from there. some spots require work with even coarser grit to get it roughed down.

get polishers book.