I've been polishing!

[stedlocks]

I've had an urge to make things shiny for a while now.....!i did a few cheap bits to practice on, before moving on to a nice 90 mm cinelli stem.....albeit one that has had a hard life!
Started like this......

After about an hours worth of wet and dry furious rubbing, it looked like this....

All the anodising was removed, then a quick 20 mins or so on the new bench grinder with polishing attachments (3 different mops and compounds), it looked like this......

It had some deep pitting below the insertion mark which I never tried too hard to remove, but I think it looks very effective!

I'm constantly looking for random bits of metal to polish now!

 

[Midlife]

Very nice

LGF has some 600 levers in the post for me to practice on and hopefully do the same.

If you have a bench grinder / wheel can't you buy something to cut out the hand work with the wet and dry ?

Shaun

 

[stedlocks]

I put some mr muscle oven cleaner on it first......didn't dissolve the anodising like I thought!

I was happy to spend some polishing time though.....I'm still practising, but getting better!

It's very therapeutic, to be honest....... :0)

 

[poweredbypies]

Think oven cleaner just leeches the colour out of anodizing. Think caustic will strip ano off the metal as it eats into the metal.

 

[stedlocks]

That's probably true. I did some looking around, and the Americans use products with sodium hydroxide in......so I bought that.
When it didn't work that well, I googled it, and found out it was the real name for caustic soda!

The concentration wasn't high enough in British pussy products.....health and safety, I suppose!

I'll get some proper stuff from boots today ;0)

 

[tonyf39]

Oven cleaner from a proper hardware store might have a high enough concentration, the good stuff eats into ally quicker than you can say abracadabra. If you get a gel based one it can be easier to apply with something like a pastry brush.
I've still got a small amount of OG left over from my catering days when I used to shut down sites or move stock, out of date high concentration stuff used to go in my car rather than in the skip It is true though that the stuff you can buy in the shops is just gash and really watered down compared to the old stuff, bleedin elf n safety my arse. :evil:

 

[Iwasgoodonce]

I've still got a small amount of OG left over from my catering days when I used to shut down sites or move stock, out of date high concentration stuff used to go in my car rather than in the skip It is true though that the stuff you can buy in the shops is just gash and really watered down compared to the old stuff, bleedin elf n safety my arse. :evil:

Many moons ago my brother visited me at university. Working at the time in a professional kitchen he was truly appalled at the squalid conditions he found in our kitchen. We actually had a range of insects that had landed on the greasy surface only to become stuck and slowly covered in more layers of grease. It was fossilisation sped up and really quite interesting to observe.

On his next visit he bought with him some of that industrial strength stuff you mention. The bad news was it arrived in an expensive Sigg bottle and was left on top of the fridge ready to attack the gunk in the morning. Obviously it ate its way through the bottle and made a good attempt on the fridge as well. We left our 'fossils' for future generations to ponder over!

Lovely job on the stem. Cranks next?

 

[stedlocks]

Having worked in food preparation factories before, I think we'd all be a bit scared to eat anything if we knew the full story!!

Believe it or not, I can get some more shine out of that stem.... It's only had a quick buff :0)
I have some more cheap cranks to practice on, but I've already achieved this on a mismatched strong light/solida one that I had on a beater...

I need to get the caustic soda and practice melting them!

 

[Robbied196]

Amazing results! I need to get my bench grinder out of the shed.

Any advice on which are the best mops and compounds to use?

 

[foz]

I'm interested in this too... I'm currently polishing some c-record cranks. I don't have a bench grinder, and didn't like the idea of oven cleaner or other chemicals, so first took off the anodising with 180 grit wet/dry paper for metal. I'm just going to keep using finer and finer grades of paper (1000 is the finest I have, will that be enough?) before finally polishing with a compound. The main doubt I have at the moment is with the polishing compound - best type/make/grade/colour/etc.? I'll be doing it all by hand, unless I clamp the workpiece and use a dremel or drill attachement.

If I can get my cranks looking something like that stem, then I'll be happy!

cheers, Andy