Polishing advice?

[Meejoir]

I have recently acquired a Campag Veloce triple chainset which is in perfectly serviceable condition. The only problem is that the Campag Veloce logo has suffered from a fair bit of heel rub and is looking pretty tatty.

What is the best way to remove the original Veloce decals? I've been thinking about polishing it up to a lovely Italian bling-shine and leaving it logo-less, or if I can find anywhere that does Campag crank decals I might put them back on.

Any advice on the polishing would be gratefully appreciated.

 

[Robbied196]

The chainset is anodised so to get the bling look you need to remove the anodising. The easiest way to do that is to use oven pride oven cleaner. If you search retrobike there's a few posts. If you then polish with autoglym the logos will soon polish off if they haven't already stripped off in the oven pride. Replacement may be more difficult, I think they are pad printed originally. Best hope would be a transfer but durability would still be a problem.

 

[citrixccea]

I stripped a set of coda cranks that had been black anodised, all of which came off with oven cleaner from the pound shop, but the coda logos were still visible. I guess I could have sanded further still but I thought they looked well.

 

[oonaff]

i thought about those little black logo/s would be difficult to get a stencil made ,such tiny writing.

 

[mrcpea]

I've bead blasted a few crank arms before, then machine polished on my home made polisher. I picked up a single phase motor from the skip & attached a polishing wheel, works a treat.

Good tip about the oven cleaner Rob, I haven't tried that

 

[oonaff]

yeah i made enquiries about converting my twin wheeled bench grinder[which was dirt cheap] and purchasing
a couple of mop wheels.
there seems to be a a double operation of a soap paste wheel followed by a buffer.
but then a hand rag and solvol might be good. any tips any one ?

 

[Robbied196]

Here's one I made earlier

Oven pride followed by autoglym.

'kettlo' did a good post on how to do it.

 

[Meejoir]

Wow, that looks beautiful. I'll post some before and after pics when I have them.

Forgive my ignorance, but is it possible to remove too much of the surface? Or is that what the Autosol replaces?

 

[Robbied196]

Wow, that looks beautiful. I'll post some before and after pics when I have them.

Forgive my ignorance, but is it possible to remove too much of the surface? Or is that what the Autosol replaces?

Possibly it may damage the aluminium if it was soaked to long but you're pretty safe around the 10 min mark for cranks. You can remove it, wash it in water and you'll be able to see if all the anodising has gone. If it hasn't just soak again for a couple of mins. What you are left with is bare aluminium and that will polish nicely with autoglym or autosol with a couple of rags and elbow grease

 

[mrcpea]

yeah i made enquiries about converting my twin wheeled bench grinder[which was dirt cheap] and purchasing
a couple of mop wheels.
there seems to be a a double operation of a soap paste wheel followed by a buffer.
but then a hand rag and solvol might be good. any tips any one ?

Hi,
I always use the brown grade soap, followed by the white soap on a sisal mop like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150mm-6-Sisal ... 43ba82caaa

And I always finish with autosol polish. I put autosol direct on what I'm polishing by hand (rather than on the polishing mop)
, then buff with the mop.
Something like this would be excellent
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150mm-BUFFING ... 20c8800de0

I cant remember the exact one I have, but this is very similar.