Polishing COMPLETE! - Page 3

Nice job!  While on the subject of aluminum polishing.. use this stuff... "English Custom Polish".   It's the best polish there is.  You will only have to touch up polish your wheels twice a year verses 50 times a year with "over the counter" type metal polishes. 

English Custom Polish.... get some!   Google is your friend.

It is possible to polish a frame without stripping the bike down to nothing.

Use Aircraft paint stripper.  Remove the mid and lower fairings.  Use plastic painters sheeting to mask off all areas you don't want paint stripper to drip onto... ie: everything.   Once your done stripping get a squirt bottle with water and spray it all over the frame to stop the chemical reaction of the stripper.  Wash the frame and leave the plastic masking on the bike.  Rinse it all off with water.  This stripper is NASTY stuff so read the directions and don't get it an anything but the frame.   Now go to town polishing.  There are some good articles on the internet on how to do it.   You'll need an electric 6 or 8 inch hand held buffer and the appropriate wheels and compounds.

OUCH... don't polish the spokes on a CBR rim.. they will look dull and grey now matter how much you polish.  Looks like crap.  

were did you find how to do this im wanting to do mine.
 

The actual process with pics is on another forum.  With permission from moderators I can post the link but I think if I did it now they would delete it.  Let me know.

i also polished my wheels on my old bike... heres some pics. what i did was use some brake cleaner to spray the black part off the lip. let it absorb and the black paint would flake off this only happend on the rear wheel.. and i got it done pretty quickly the front wheel was all bad.. teh spray thing didnt work so i had to sand it and the edge are not fun to do at all.. but it turned out quite nicely i think heres a pic of the rear wheel that thing was on bling

i'm thinking of doing the same thing with my 929 .. so what would be the easier way to do it on the 929 the f4 took me about 3 days to get done.
whats the best sandpaper to use?   

i'm in the process of doing it..i went out and bought that aircraft remover stuff the spray can.. works like a charm i got one side done i'll post pics of the results but its lookin nice                   

i finished up one side front and back the erion with the chrome looks SICK. i'll try to get pics up
 
aircraft remover works beaaautifully 

Im just curious but I finished my back wheel with masking tape but I noticed a few people said to use duct tape.  Anyone have a preference or is one better than the other? Duct vs. masking? 

I used duct tape. Not that flimsy kind that you can see through.  The Airplane cleaner might eat through it. Get the tough, shiny kind.  And I used steel wool for sanding: fine and rough.

i used maskin tape.. turned out pretty good but i still have some small specs and need to touch em up

Yeah, me too. Especially in the nook between the rim and the tire.  I was just being too careful about letting the remover touch the tire, so I got a few spots to touch up on. It's barely noticable(<--spelling?) though.

Can you do the entire wheel? Or would I have to leaeve it black?
 

The wheels are made of aluminum right?  I want to do my frame (900rr) but I also want to make sure it's not going to ruin it.

It won't ruin it. A friend of mine has his frame done on his gsxr. It look just as good as all the chrome he has on the bike. Now his bike has never seen water what so ever. He does not wash his bike with water. He just hand polishes everything.
 


 
My friend owns his own sportbike shop with a few diffrent online stores too. But you can see what he did with this bike. Now it has changed since these were taken since built his own swing arm for it.

I polished my wheels last summer and am working on my frame now... .Here is a good writeup on it if anyone is interested...  
 
http://www.schiebel.ca/Polishing/frame_polishing_101.htm
 
It helped me alot

That yellow gsxr is nice.. i'm not a fan of extended swingarms but the rest is very cool.

I'm debating on polishing my frame.. it's ugly now.

I helped a buddy do his zx-6 frame this year and its a pain in the a$$ if you have the time to devote to it go for it it looks incredible i'm just glad i bought mine polished ( yep i cheated, i did my rims that was enough for me) like i said the final product is great it's just time consuming and dirty

quote:

ORIGINAL: fastrr

That yellow gsxr is nice.. i'm not a fan of extended swingarms but the rest is very cool.

I'm debating on polishing my frame.. it's ugly now.

 
Yeah the extended swing arms are more of a Florida thing more then anywhere else. We have so many straight roads that it great for here. I have it on my 1000rr. Mine is only a 6 inch stretch so far. His is a 10 inch. He is going to build me a swingarm later this year with a 10-12 inch extention to it.

WAT ABOUT A 2001 WITH THE CHROME FRAME AND SWING ARM

If anyone is getting ready to do this I would suggest that you clean the rims very well afterwards and then clear coat over the polished part. I have done this both ways and if you dont clearcoat them after a couple years the aluminum does start to oxidize.

nice job john87 on the frame..sweet!

quote:

ORIGINAL: manny04

nice job john87 on the frame..sweet!

 
 
 
 
 
yea it took forever but i was worth it but thanks man