MOPED ARMY

none of that

wire wheel on a bench grinder to get the gunk off

then sandpaper starting at like 40 and going up to maybe 1000

(start at 40 so you can flatten all those casting/parting lines)

then buffer wheels on the bench grinder with whatever polish or jewelers' rouge or whatever is appropriate for aluminum

just sit and listen to the radio or watch tv and spend some time with your hubs. it'll take a while.

I've had good results using this stuff. They also have a polish specifically for aluminum.

We need pics. If it's just oxidation you want Mother's or Autosol. If it's clear coat you'll need an abrasive.

I can think of many ways to polish metal and over the years have suggested some of them, with pics of many parts. All I got was shit from peeps who think polishing is a waste of time.

Vapor blasting costs about $20 per part.

https://stcloud.craigslist.org/aos/d/aqua-blasting-cleaning-parts/6516563332.html

That St. Cloud add is super sketchy and the guy doesn't pick up the phone.

@ Charles Cole: what are your polishing methods, sir? I'd like to get my hub as shiny as yours.

after sodablasting or glassbead i dont go higher than 600 grit before hitting it with black brown and white.

i did up to 2000 once and it was a waste of time. aluminum is soft.

Started polishing MC hubs n parts back in the 60s. Lotsa ways to do it. I try to do it as time effective as possible and found it's much easier to keep a nicely polished surface brite with a minimal amount of work, however if you let it go, yes it will degrade. For round items use anything that will spin it. Mandrel from a proper fitting shaft, IE: axle, or in the case of a Hobbit, for instance, a tranny shaft mounted in a drill press or lathe. I don't throw away broken cranks cause they provide a mounting for parts that fit. I have a collection of shafts that can be used for mandrels. And for other parts lots of sanding after dremeling away casting imperfections, etc. Then my Baldor buffing motors, with plenty of different wheels and compounds. One compound to one wheel so there's no cross contamination. It just depends on how nice you want the final outcome to be. For nooks n crannies, easily made custom mandrels for the dremel is mandatory. About 80 hrs to mirror polish an entire Hobbit motor. Picture doesn't do it justice!

(edited)

They start at about 15 grand!

Wow!!! Charles that is some awesome work.

I cleaned a nasty set of hubs with just zep brand degreaser from Menards and a green scotch-brite pad. They came out really nice.

Yeah I did.

Just curious, does anybody here use a vibratory tumbler to clean parts? They’re pretty simple and cheep to build and tumbling media such as walnut shell isn’t that expensive either. I’m doing to be doing some experiments with a tumbler I recently built. Might make a thread on it if all goes well. They’re common for people who reload their own ammunition and need to clean the brass shells. Could work out well for smaller moped and motorcycle parts too

never post again