I have been trying to polish up some Al, however I thought brasso would do the trick, but then I read on the bottle that it wont work.... What should I use? Silvo?
Is it dirty or scratched? Brasso is used for cleaning dirt off ........ yup u guessed it brass. So if the al is just dirty a cloth would do as it doesn't oxidise with the air as fast as brass does. If it's scrached or dull, u'r going to have to buff it. if u got a drill, not just a dremmell cos it's a bit small and weedy, then u can buy a buffing bit for it and just spend hours with that, otherwise alot of elbow grease is required and alot of time. Hope that helps. If anyone elso knows of another way to do it, or a faster way then please correct me.
Peek stainless steel polish works a treat. Looks like a light-blue toothpaste. Apply with a dremel with felt-disc polishing head.
yeh I have it a go with a lambs wool one, just didn't see to do much?? I think the Al has some type of coating on it...
urm, u might have to sand it first then, but thats gonna make one hell of a mess before it get's better. sanding will leave it looking like brushed aluminium, then u'r gonna have to go through the grades of sandpaper right down to something like a 1200 grade, then follow nexxo's advise for the buffing. Gonna take alot of time and alot of sanding/buffing.
I was thinking paint stripper to get it off but it would react with the Al, expecially if I had just sanded it....
urm, not to sure about paint stripper, might react with the alu and cause it to oxidize, not sure about the chemicals used to crate paint stripper, can anyone help, are there any acids? If so acids would oxidize the alu in the same way that water rusts steel, but faster, that is if i'm remebering chemistry from school well enough.
sand it. sand it down, polish after you've done it over with 1200 grit aluminum oxide prevents further oxidisation of the aluminum underneath it, and is generally very easy to remove (usually just going over it with 1200ish grit sandpaper) if it's anodized, or clearcoated- you'll be sanding it off in the end anyway. What is the object that you're polishing up anyway?
just to clear up some confusion paint stripper is generally just a alcohol like turpentine or isopropyl or xenopropyl. It's not very effective on most paints once they have dried, it usually used to well thin paints or clean up still wet oil based paints. It wouldn't touch anodizing or powdercoating, or dried clear coats. (I'm guessing the clearcoat you are describing is powder coated) second aluminum oxidizes FAST, so fast in fact that the only way to see it pure is in an non-oxygen environment (which i have done and it looks just a little more silvery) at any rate the aluminum will only oxidize so deep naturaly I think a .003" but that i can't remember. At any rate it should polish up like most other metals where you would sand it up the grades like any other. You might just need to use a better polish as aluminum oxide is hard (they use it for sandpaper) so things like tripoli or rouge don't normally polish it all that well. Finally aluminum is very porous and will soak up chemicals so sometimes even after you have cleaned the surface, stains or discoloration will get imbedded in the surface, basically AL is nasty to keep polished, but not impossible. ANd over time the oxide layer will yellow and this will be accelerated by sunlight. that's why although it appares to tarnish slowly, it has infact been oxidized since the first .00001 seconds that it hit air.
I had to sand of the protective coating, however I have a limited choice of sandpaper so got the finest I could then rubbed two sheets of it together to get it even finer. I am polishing up my Antec super lan boy, I got the top pretty good just as a test but more sanding is needed. Silvo is workign a lot better than braso did. Anyway, gotta get back to sanding!
That's a very good guide/example - with an amazing finish There's another good painting + polishing guide here: Spray Paint Guide & Mirror Finish... Here's the end result:
Mothers aluminum polish. I use it on paintball markers, and it works great on the 6061 Al they are made of.
Oh wow, I just realised that I have been using 320Grit sand paper, will ahve to get some better stuff next time I am in Shepparton (local big town)
