Mirror Polishing Inlet Manifold

[Guest davetibbs]

I've got a GTI6 inlet manifold and want to polish it to a nice mirror finish.

 

But how do I go about it? I've tried 40 grit sandpaper which has got it looking a bit shinier but it's still hugely pitted due to the "mottled" original finish of the manifold.

 

Any ideas how I go about it?

 

Sand/shotblasting?

[welshpug 1,666]

40 grit?! that'll do to get the worst of the imperfections off, next you want to move to a much higher grade (finer) and work at getting it as smooth as possible, when you have a smooth surface you can then start to polish the metal with a cloth or buffing wheel.

[ORB 227 1 Cars]

With me restoring old school BMX's I polish a lot of alloy.

 

Here is the drill:

 

Take off all the rough stuff with 40 or similar, than work down the grades of glass paper till it gets to the stage where it is clean, yet scratched by the paper.

 

Then

 

Go nuts with wet n dry paper and lots of soapy water.

 

Start with the rough wet n dry, the work to the smoother till your at 2000 grit.

 

Swap from water and soap to brasso and wet n dry.

 

Smooth it up.

 

Then

 

Go buy a big ole tin of Peek, loads of old T shirts and get rubbing.

 

Sounds a lot of work, but ace results can easily be had with a bit of time spent while watching the telly with the wife rubbing away

[dee205 3]

As welshpug said, you need to have a smooth flat surface before you can expect to see a nice shiney finish.

Work from a rough paper to a finer one. Then use a metal polish to finish the job. There's loads of them out there.

If you have a dremmel type tool or even a cordless drill and a mop you should get a nice mirror finish.

 

 

Damien

[sonofsam 5]

Buy anE-book http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=91-0972461809-0

 

Big arse hand drill in a vice

[Guest davetibbs]

Thanks guys, maybe I didn't make the post clear enough..

 

I've polished stuff before, that's fine - however I can't get the surface remotely smooth with 40grit because there are still loads of small pits in the surface. I haven't tried power tools yet - is this worth it?

 

I know all about going finer and finer etc, but I still need a smooth surface before I progress...

[miamistu 1]

You need to keep going at it with the coarse stuff untill the pits are all gone, then go to the finer stuff etc.

 

I've used T-Cut as the final polishing compound and ended up with good results:

 

 

 

EDIT> oops, who forgot to log in as them selves!....ME, Alex, that's who!

Edited December 28, 2006 by miamistu

[1 FAT PUG 39]

they are a bit of a pain to get the rough casting off, but as said just time and effort with the sandpaper, i do alloy polishing and i just have wheels thats painted with different grades of grit, so its alot quicker

[sonofsam 5]

Have heard about those wheels, take it we're not talkimg about your average flap-wheel's here, think my Boss is to tight to get them in!

Any more details on them 1 FAT PUG please.