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Ol Dirty Bastard
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<blockquote data-quote="69ST" data-source="post: 187866" data-attributes="member: 5"><p>400-grit is a lot coarser than you think, for this type of finishing. The painstaking work is when you think it's time to start polishing. With soft alloys, 600-800 wet might be good enough to take the part to the buffer. With harder alloys, it's not even close. You're almost always better off getting the surface as finely metalfinished as possible before moving onto the polishing stage. That can soak-up more man-hours than seems possible. With hard alloys, like Honda case castings, points inspection covers, cam covers, K0 triple trees, brake plates, etc...I consider 1200 the minimum for polishing. 1500-2000 is better, especially if you're going to polish by hand. Think of ultra-fine, wet, sandpaper as rubbing compound in sheet form.</p><p></p><p>What'll drive you crazy is putting a mirror-like polish on a part, wiping-off the polishing compound residue...then finding pits, rough areas in the recesses or/and scratches left behind by sandpaper that was too coarse. Surface imperfections really become noticeable on polished items. </p><p></p><p>It usually takes me anywhere from 1-3 hours hunched over a buffer, using a half-dozen progressively finer abrasive wheels, followed by 3 different polishing compounds, to turn out a show-quality K0 top tree, 1-1-1/2 hours to do a brake plate. Believe me, polishing is the fun, "easy" part. It's all the metlafinishing required to make a polished item look really good.</p><p></p><p>Now, having said all of the above, I should mention that I based that on the assumption of the goal being well-executed, no qualifications, polished parts. That may not matter to you...or be what you want, in the first place. If you're just after a clean, almost soft-polished, appearance that's different from original, wet blasting might a good alternative.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="69ST, post: 187866, member: 5"] 400-grit is a lot coarser than you think, for this type of finishing. The painstaking work is when you think it's time to start polishing. With soft alloys, 600-800 wet might be good enough to take the part to the buffer. With harder alloys, it's not even close. You're almost always better off getting the surface as finely metalfinished as possible before moving onto the polishing stage. That can soak-up more man-hours than seems possible. With hard alloys, like Honda case castings, points inspection covers, cam covers, K0 triple trees, brake plates, etc...I consider 1200 the minimum for polishing. 1500-2000 is better, especially if you're going to polish by hand. Think of ultra-fine, wet, sandpaper as rubbing compound in sheet form. What'll drive you crazy is putting a mirror-like polish on a part, wiping-off the polishing compound residue...then finding pits, rough areas in the recesses or/and scratches left behind by sandpaper that was too coarse. Surface imperfections really become noticeable on polished items. It usually takes me anywhere from 1-3 hours hunched over a buffer, using a half-dozen progressively finer abrasive wheels, followed by 3 different polishing compounds, to turn out a show-quality K0 top tree, 1-1-1/2 hours to do a brake plate. Believe me, polishing is the fun, "easy" part. It's all the metlafinishing required to make a polished item look really good. Now, having said all of the above, I should mention that I based that on the assumption of the goal being well-executed, no qualifications, polished parts. That may not matter to you...or be what you want, in the first place. If you're just after a clean, almost soft-polished, appearance that's different from original, wet blasting might a good alternative. [/QUOTE]
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