I've been polishing!

[stedlocks]

I used 'the polishing shop'.co.uk..... Ring Andrew and say pat the fireman sent you!
Top service and best prices for the kit I could find.....

If yu are not sure, speak to him and ask him.... He's sound. I suppose it helps if you are good with your hands to get a good finish .... Or lucky! (probably a bit of both!)
The reason I wanted to do it, was that I'm doing dry long shifts now.... 96 hours on, 96 off, and in my downtime I need something to keep busy.... This ticks my boxes :0)
I've got some more cheap parts to practice on before I get the campag and mavic bits out!

 

[stedlocks]

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

I used 240 grit, then 800, then 1240 on the stem first to get it to photo number 2...... Then the 3 mops and compounds.....it took about 2 hours all in I reckon.

 

[Tel]

Here are some of my previous work:

Athena Polished and non polished:

CDA

Ironically I have just the same cranksets polished and engraved waiting to be listied for sale. Actually they're the two unpolished cranksets in the pictures above.

I also have 1 set of C-Record polished and engraved and one set polished awaiting engraving.

 

[Tel]

The hardest thing about polished parts is taking decent pictures!

 

[gregs656]

Nice work. I could use something mechanical to help along my polishing.

 

[stedlocks]

I love that engraving.....do you get someone else to put that on, or is it your own work? :0)

 

[Tel]

I have to get the chainsets engraved, unfortunately I do not pocess the skill or equipment to do it myself. Thing is they won't just do one or two I have to get a reasonable quantity done at a time and it costs rather a lot of money, but now I've had it done I couldn't imagine the parts without that finishing touch....

 

[stedlocks]

They look good though.....

 

[Tel]

Thanks and yes I certainly agree with that.

I just found a picture of the C-Record engraved chainset I have:

An original one of these went for circa £250 on eBay recently. Mine unfortunetlyhas quite a bit of shoe rub on the left crank arm which also is not matching (matches physically but numbers are mismatched). I'm going to work on that shoe rub and get it mounted on something very soon.

 

[shawnb]

I too have been busy removing my fingerprints with wet and dry!

The SR seatpost was sold as a bit rough, you can see below the insertion marks the state it was nearly up to the flutes. It's now like new.

The cranks I have been doing over a period of weeks when I remember them, the RH arm is done, i'm still halfway through the LH arm. I will ask Tel to engrave them when they're done.
The post wasn't anodised so that was easy. The cranks were but I didn't bother with caustic soda as said above I was very unimpressed with the weak stuff I got from the shop. The ano on the cranks was quite thin and came off easily with a succession of 120,400,800,1200 & 1500 wet and dry (actually a quicker process than it sounds!) A good polish with solvol then the belgom which is also a wax, this adds even more shine and protection. It's available on ebay and i've been using it on my classic car alloy rims for years. All the above was done by hand, the shine will be ebtter with mops and a drill/grinder attachment.
Screwfix sell polishing kits and have a good one that you use with your electric drill or angle grinder. I've got a kit from polishingkits too but it's mostly used up now but did a very good job, that too came with fittings for an electric drill and angle grinder, I've found the faster the speed the better the shine as long as you don't let the mop get too dry.