My obsession with shiny bits on bikes!

Aluminium polishing is an absolutely horrible job that will have your fingers aching and make you look like you've spent the day down a coal mine. It takes time too, lots of it. The wheels on my Bandit alone took me 15 hours solid, but it's worth it. You will need a roll of good quality masking tape, some old newspapers, paint stripper(nitromores), an electric drill, a Mr Fastener Polishing Kit Ref POLPK20, some Autosol, lots of clean rag, Primer paint and colour topcoat, clear lacquer, 400 wet&dry 1200 wet&dry, a Stanley knife, a large woodwork vice and bench plus loads of coffee and a bar of chocolate.

Remove wheels from bike, you don't need to remove bearings or tyres. You will need to remove the brake discs, mark them up left and right and arrow direction of rotation with a marker pen. Mask up bearings. You can leave tyres on because you will leave a small line around the inner edge of rim. The reason for this is that if you remove all paint from where the tyre seats you could get tyre sealing problems as the aluminium oxidises under the tyre rim. I have polished my rims but painted the spokes and central high part of the rim purple. Mark position of balance weights and remove them. Mask up central high part of rim. There is a natural line to mask to on both sides, where the centre is rougher than the smoother rims. Use the paint stripper on the rims, when all paint is off wash off thoroughly and remove masking. Look closely and you will see fine machining lines around the rims. Using the 400 wet&dry remove these lines until the rims are perfectly smooth, then go over them again with 800 then 1200 wet&dry until they have an even finish as smooth as a babys bum. Holding the wheel upright in the vice by the tyre you then use your polishing kit as per their intructions working down thru the grades of polish and mops until the final one gives a mirror finish. (You should now look like you work down a coal mine and your fingers feel like someone shut them in a car door!) Now remove all excess polish from the wheels with rag and white spirit. Dry thoroughly. Now mask up your polished rims taking care to get a perfectly straight line between the smooth polished rim and higher rough section. You are now ready to prime, paint and lacquer the spokes and central rim. Resist the temptation to over load the paint, several light coats with 20 minutes in between are better than 2 heavy ones which will take hours to dry and harden and may well run. When finished, remove masking after about 1 hour. Leave overnight in warm room for paint to harden the finish polishing rims with Autosol. I found no need to lacquer the polished rims as they are easy to keep bright if you get a good finish to start off with. Otherwise you will need a special lacquer which will stay on a polished surface. Also, if it gets chipped the water will get under it and start oxidisation of the ally, Solution, strip it off and start again!

Once my fingers had recovered from polishing the wheels I turned my attention to the foot pegs and hangers as shown above. Follow exactly the same proceedure.Hope this helps. Happy polishing.

Nick