Safety: 1. Buffing dust gets on and into everything. Wear a dust mask or your snot will be black for days, to say nothing of your lungs. 2. Wear safety glasses whenever the buffer is moving. You can't drive a hot rod if you're blind. Equipment: I used a Craftsman 0.33 HP/ 3450 RPM bench grinder on a pedestal, a hand-held ¼ drill and a dremmel tool. All the buffing supplies were purchased from The Eastwood Company; www.eastwood.com, before I'd met Polisher on the HAMB. He has good advice and explains the whys of this process in his booklet. He also has supplies on his website; www.englishcustompolishing.com. Overarching truths: 1. To make metal shiny, you're leveling its surface, using sequentially finer grits. NEVER proceed to the next step until you're COMPLETELY finished with the previous step. 2. NEVER CROSS-CONTAMINATE buffing wheels, compound, or rags. Use one type of compound with each type of buffing wheel (I labeled the wheels with a sharpie marker). Assign one wiping rag to each compound/buffing wheel combo. Wash your hands between steps. Dust off the bench grinder, drill, and dremmel between steps. The process 1. Buy pitted cast-aluminum valve covers off E-Bay for $8.00, complete with '80's vintage pink overspray and caked with greasy gasket residue.
2. Use paint stripper and old toothbrushes to remove the overspray, followed by brake cleaner to remove the grease and gasket scuz. Paint stripper is nasty- wear gloves. 3. Next, use a 400-grit grinding roll on a ¼" drill to grind down the casting seams and the wrench-inflicted gouges in the concave areas adjacent to the bolt holes. Here's a pic after grinding:
4. Fine steel wool and some elbow grease will remove the oxidization and big scratches between the fins and adjacent to the M/T logo. 5. Remove the big scratches by wet sanding with 400-grit wet/dry sandpaper and a bucket of water (if your valve covers have positively HUGE gouges in 'em, start with 220 or 320-grit, then resume with 400). Rub vertically, then horizontally until all of them have disappeared. This step could also be accomplished with an "expander wheel" and abrasive bands, mounted on a bench grinder. I'm a tight-wad, so I did it by hand. 6. Continue wet sanding with 400-grit sandpaper; but now on a 2.5"x 5" rubber sanding block in order to level out the big flat surfaces. This is important; Just like block sanding bodywork before painting, this step will eliminate ripples (caused by the valleys you created in step #5) that would otherwise appear later in the process. The pic shows before and after this step; I've sanded the front valve cover. The back cover hasn't been stripped yet.
7. Next, put two 3/8"x 6" "spiral" buffs on one side of your bench grinder and wipe some "Tripoli" compound onto the spinning buffs. 8. Begin buffing, holding the valve cover on the BOTTOM SIDE of the buffing wheel and buff AWAY from your body. Don't push the piece toward the buffing wheel. Instead, let the buffer do the work. Move the piece back and forth across the buff, then turn the piece 90 degrees and buff perpendicularly to your previous direction. This is important- it ensures you're progressing sequentially from big scratches to little scratches to no scratches. Use a sharpie marker or grease pencil to highlight stubborn scratches that need to be revisited. Reload the buff with Tripoli every few minutes. If you find that you have too much compound on the buff, remove some of it by holding a wire brush or buff rake against the spinning buff.
9. Once you've buffed all the big open areas, give the bench grinder a rest and get out the dremmel and sequentially smaller (2", followed by 1") spiral buffs with Tripoli to get into the concave areas adjacent to the bolt holes. The pic shows before and after this step; the back cover has only been block sanded.
10. Now it's time to make a decision. You can: a. Leave the low areas between the fins "as cast" and skip directly to the next finer compound in step #13. FWIW, this is how most finned aluminum M/T valve covers appeared in Don Montgomery's book; "Those Wild Fuel Altereds". b. Or if you're like me and are obsessed with shiny things, you can polish the crevices between the fins and around the M/T logo... Warning: This takes a LOT more effort and is not for polishing poseurs. If you take this route, I highly recommend hard-core uncompromising blues accompaniment- Muddy Waters, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Hound Dog Taylor work well for me. Proceed at your own risk- you've been warned. 11. Continue using the dremmel with a 1" spiral buff and Tripoli between the fins and around the M/T logo. Use the same technique that you used around the bolt holes.
12. Once you've buffed as much as you can with the 1" buffs, continue buffing the tiny nooks and crannies with the Tripoli on tiny cone-shaped "felt buffs".
13. After you've gone over the entire surface with the spiral buff/Tripoli compound combination, rub the piece down with a clean cotton rag (old t-shirts are good), inspecting for scratches and traces of Tripoli. Use Q-tips dipped in paint thinner to remove compound that gets lodged in the otherwise inaccessible corners. Don't proceed until ALL the scratches and ALL the residual compound are gone. 14. Remove the spiral buffs from your bench grinder and dremmel and wipe the dust off them. Install similarly size "loose section" buffs and wipe on some "white rouge" compound. Buff the valve cover with the loose section/white rouge combo, repeating all the same steps you used with the spiral/Tripoli combo. In the pic with two valve covers, the front one has gotten the loose section/white rouge treatment (note the clarity of the screwdriver's reflection), while the back one hasn't yet. The close-up pic shows how I polished between the fins and around the M/T logo with the dremmel, using felt buffs with white rouge.
15. Squirt ("spritz") a little water on the valve cover and go over it again with the loose section buffing wheel. Here's a pic of both finished valve covers with a vintage "WYNNS" sticker for some period-correct color and to show the clarity of a FLAT polished surface. 16. Protect the valve covers and postpone oxidization by waxing them with some carnauba wax. 17. Finally, install both valve covers on your car, drive it hard, and then repeat the polishing process next winter!
Thanks. There's a lot more in polisher's booklet: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57098
Kool this will sure in handy. I got some nasty looking swapmeet finned valve covers on the wall that have been begging me to clean them up but I wasn't sure how. I appreciate the info. Thanks
A bit to add to your Tech, use ziplock baggies to keep your buffs in whenever they're not being actually used. Lots of abrasive gets in the air.... I used to use Mr. Clean and a toothbrush to clean the compound and wax from the piece, rinse with hot water. Also change direction on the surface which you're polishing. Buffing along scratches can enlongate them. Flatman
You did well, and thank you for the plug. Also thanks for mentioning the face mask, a proper respirator does a thousand times the job of a painters mask and isn't really all that expensive when you consider your health. I have minor lung problems because of the stupidity and stubborness of youth. I've since become an advocate of clean air, though I still smoke. (and splutter) It pleases me when other polishers advocate good practice. I use polishing sticks down in those fins. They're quite fancy but useful, but you can make them easily enough. It's still slow going, though. I've actually got buffs fitted to the shanks so they don't fly off for dremels too. I would have used different abrasives, but I don't use quite the same stuff as most shops eitherway. I would use something pH neutral if I was applying a wax. Carnauba can become very acidic in the warmth of the engine comapartment. But still a nice job done. In a small shop you can reduce a lot of the dust by putting a shopvac hose with a decent funnel on the end just below and behind the buff, if you have a means to secure it. The reduction in dust isn't immediately apparent, but by the end of a few hours you can see the difference.
You mentioned that you use Steel Wool. Scotch-Brite made Steel Wool obsolete. One of its advantages is that Scotch-Brite is based on a synthetic material, while Steel Wool is steel. Tiny bits of steel break off when it's being used, which can impregnate the parts you're working on and cause rust. I polish parts, but I don't use buffing wheels. Virtually all of my polishing work involves time spent shaping the part, getting its surfaces even. I do a lot with files, and often use a stick of wood with emery cloth on it. I'm attaching some pictures of some of my parts that I've polished, including a cast-iron big block Chevy block, a Brodix big block intake, a Brodix small block intake with Cal Custom seven-fin valve covers, and a '32 Ford axle. There was no buffing equipment used on any of these parts. The brightly-polished parts were taken up to 1,500-grit and then worked a bit by hand with some metal polish. I leave my swimming pool empty, because I couldn't stand to see the ripples and waves. Dave (602) 233-8400 http://www.roadsters.com/
You sir, have much more patience than I do. I usually sand to 220 or 320, get tired of sanding, and lay into it with my buffing wheel till it's shiney. Not a good system for large flat things though
Great stuff. I noticed the Brodix manifold especially. How did you do the finish on that? That's the look I love and would like to know. Thanks Pat
I'm a huge fan of scotchbrite... AKA 'surface conditioning pads' if you're buying other brands. I use 2" roloc discs on a cheap angle-head die grinder and they're huge timesavers. I try to avoid sandpaper, but when I do use it I try to use 600 or finer grit; this is primarily for leveling large areas like when removing scratches or gouges. A link to my method... http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39869
The person ( a real nice guy by the way) in the Louisville, KY area who did a lot of trim repairs and polishing passed away ay a pretty young age. I've often wondered if it might have been related to the stuff he may have been inhaling. Be safe. Gary
I love these threads. I am getting ready to polish an aluminum Winters Champ quick change. It's exciting and dreaded at the same time.
Gary, I’ll drop my Cal Customs off. I feel like you should be able to do it for a 20 spot…… Just realized this was from 2006. Dang…..
Chris, add a zero. Or maybe two. Now I'm learning first-hand how hard bodywork is & why it's so expensive!
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