My First Polishing Job

[RonRonTSI]

Today was my first attempt to polish I started on my tial 38mm wastegate. It looked pretty good so I decided to Polish my compressor housing. Let me know what you guys think?

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[Ryan_Radio]

Looking Good!

Now just throw a high speed buffer on that with some compound and you will see yourself in the reflection!

 

[RonRonTSI]

Well I used a dremel with a little tiny pad with mother aluminum polish...I need to get my hands on a buffer and find out a compound you are talking about

 

[xxShaneOmac]

You can tell you used a little tiny wheel.

So once you get something with a bigger surface and a little more power it will kinda mesh together and be great

gj so far

 

[fwdmaster]

Nice polishing job, worth the time and effort

 

[RonRonTSI]

yeah I feel that there is alot of more shine that can come out of it...I dont really want to throw the money for a high speed buffer right now

 

[RonRonTSI]

the polishing job that i did prob took me about 3 to 4 hrs. And I used 7 stages of sand paper...It was all manual as well.

 

[turboglenn]

Looks good, especially for the amount of tools you had to perform the polish with.
You can get a bench style buffing wheel setup with 2 wheels (tight and loose stitch) right now at horbour freight for 37 bucks. And the compounds are about 2 - 4 dollars each, you will need between 2 and 3 sticks for each type of metal.

Once you get a bench buffer, you'll find yourself buffing everything aluminum on your car ( i know i did ) if you were to take some 300, then 600 then some 1000 and 1500 paper to it before buffing you would have almost a mirror finish. The more time you put into sanding out all the little casting marks from sand and the seam where the halves of the mold met, the more mirror-like your finish wil be. Also a good "stick style" compound will leave a protective finish on the parts that you don't get with mothers or other universal "shine kits". This will help keep the part shiny instaed of making you re-polish it every other week. There's special compounds for soft non-ferrous (aluminum, brass, etc... all soft non-magnetic), Hard non-ferrous (stianless and hard non-magnetic), and ferrous metals (steel, iron anything magnetic) Each one has it's own cutting, smoothing and finishing compounds that will make each one shine like a brand new penny.

 

[RonRonTSI]

Thanks for your help I will look in to it

 

[Steviek]

looks good how much work was it>? Was it worth it?

 

[RonRonTSI]

well it was a good deal of work. It took me about 4 hrs of work. To some people its supposed to be alot longer process. I still need to buff it to get that mirror finish but other than that, I am very pleased with the turbo

 

[matthewdesigns]

I imagine you were using a felt buffing wheel? Compressed felt with a little flexibility, about 1/8" wide? You can bump up another level with the Dremel by using a multilayer, unstitched muslin or chamois buff. Both are readily available for Dremels set up on a mandrel, ready to go. Even using the same polishing compound with those soft, loose buffs will improve the finish. With those buffs, don't force them into the metal, but rather keep a good amount of compound on the buff and use a light hand, so the buff glides softly over the surface. Use some liquid soap and a microfiber cloth to remove the compound from the parts when you are done so that you don't scratch the surface when cleaning up.

 

[RonRonTSI]

Thanks mattews. Im currently shaving the housing and repolishing the compressor. I was following a guys procedure yesterday. He told me to polish it by hand. But now today im going to buff it with the compound left on. we will see what happens. I will have the pics up tonight of the finish product.

 

[RonRonTSI]

Well Im done polishing for a while until I find a high speed buffer. Im liking what I came up with. let me know what you think?

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[cbrfrenzie]

Nice, looking good! I like the stripped off letters, nice and stealthy! Kind of an oxymoron, polished, yet stealthy....

 

[lee101315]

Not bad at all!

 

[RonRonTSI]

Well it is my first time ever polishing. So I have to give myslelf credit. And for the time I owe myself a beer. Cheers haha

 

[matthewdesigns]

Looks good. The polishing motor will definitely get you to the next level. Another thing you can use, if you want to hand finish metal, is polishing paper. There's a 3M product called "Wetordry Polishing Paper", and is available up to 8,000 grit, which is darn near mirror polished. It's actually more like a thin cloth backing, so it's super flexible and durable. If you go to the 3M website, they'll even send you a sample.

 

[RonRonTSI]

Thanks Im going to try that polishing paper...wen ever it comes i will show more pics

 

[kenamond]

Do you have any fingerprints left?

I polished the lips of my stock rims and had to spread it out over a week so that my fingernails and tips could heal a bit.

I found that if you don't spend enough time with the sandpaper, you just wear yourself out with the polishing compound. Same goes with coarser vs. finer grit. If you have to spend much time getting a deep scratch out with finer-grit, go back to coarser. If you go back to 600 grit to get the nics out, you can re-polish with compound in a flash. Same with going from 600 back to say 120 grit. The bulk of the time is getting all of the major stuff sanded down but at the appropriate grit. I used mother's aluminum polish, and it ended up like a mirror. I had to do a couple of passes. I used paper towels for the first few polishings and then a rag. When the paper towel got almost black, I'd refold to a clean spot. The black stuff is an abrasive, so it ends up limiting how shiney you get it unless you keep the cloth clean-ish. It just gets shinier and shinier the more you buff/polish.

If you have a bench grinder, I'd seriously consider using that. You might not be able to reach everything, but you'll save a lot of time on the portions you *can* reach. Then look into clearcoating the parts. They'll dull over time as the surface oxidizes. You can repolish them quickly if you don't let it get too far gone, but the clear will last much longer.

 

[GSpikeX]

This looks pretty good, I think you just motivated me to get a dremel and polish the evo III manifold I'm going to get.

 

[RonRonTSI]

Ken. thanks for the information bro. Im seriously just looking for a hobby to get me by as i build my car. Really im just waiting for my clutch to come in so I can rap the project up. So I found myslef trying to polish, turned out pretty good. Basically any information will work right now, any intel will help. haha cheers

 

[RonRonTSI]

I was bored so I decided to polish my sfp manifold

From start to finish

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[redtsi252]

Keep polishin....you want that mirror finish...good job tho

 

[kenamond]

Heh...steel's a bit harder than aluminum. After it gets red hot (it will), it won't hold a mirror finish, so don't bother.

I did my rims because I can't affort real parts . Sandpaper, polishing compound, paper towels, and some old t-shirts are cheap! But making things shiney is addictive.