Compound to polish aluminum

[AdamZ]

Looking for advice on what kind of compound to get to polish aluminum. I have an old wing that I am turning into a piece of furniture and we stripped the paint on the leading edge with an angle grinder and some paint stripper for the rivets. I now want to polish the leading edge to make it shine. The Aluminum is a solid but due to paint, weather and the grinding has some coarseness. I'll need to use a few different grits to get it smoothed down. I have the angle grinder and some wool wheels to polish & buff it but am not sure what type of compounds to use. There are some bars for sale on but not sure if I should use those or a more liquid slurry. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[texasclouds]

I sanded a rough, freshly formed spinner down to the finest grit available at Lowes. I think it was 2000 grit (probably 5000 grit). Then polished with a 6” buffing wheel grey, brown, then white with stick polish from Harbor Freight. Those deep scratches will come to haunt you with the final product. Mine looks good from a few feet back. Periodically polish with Mothers to protect.

 

[texasclouds]

Also did some hub caps

 

[unsafervguy]

if you stripped it with a grinder, you will never get a mirror finish. wet sand with finer and finer grit up to about 5000 then start with nuvite F9 and go finer. good luck

 

[AdamZ]

I sanded a rough, freshly formed spinner down to the finest grit available at Lowes. I think it was 2000 grit. Then polished with a 6” buffing wheel grey, brown, then white with stick polish from Harbor Freight. Those deep scratches will come to haunt you with the final product. Mine looks good from a few feet back. Periodically polished with Mothers to protect.

Was that with a liquid product or slurry? If so what was the product name if you recall?

 

[AdamZ]

if you stripped it with a grinder, you will never get a mirror finish. wet sand with finer and finer grit up to about 5000 then start with nuvite F9 and go finer. good luck

Thanks, figured that was the case. Would be happy with a high shine, not worried about a mirror. Do you have any recommendations for a wet sanding product. Trying to find one that has graduated grits

 

[texasclouds]

Was that with a liquid product or slurry? If so what was the product name if you recall?

I used these sticks and a 6” bench grinder with cotton wheels. Push the stick into spinning wheel to load with polish then work the metal, add more polish every few minutes or so.

sanding was just sandpaper from Lowes with a little water spray.

 

[wilkersk]

Gear legs. One on top is as received from manufacturer in rough machine finnish to 600 grit. The one on the bottom was wet sanded by hand with 600/800/1000/1500/2000 grit, two passes each. A "pass" is sanding until a uniform texture is achieved over the whole surface causing deeper scratches to stand out (which then have to be blended out). Cross-hatching (sanding along a slightly different direction) between passes helps to see the uniform texture develop.

Then, first hand polished with Nuvite F7 and final hand polish with Nuvite IIS.

(if you blow up this pic real big, you can see in the trailing edge near the top, I still had a little more work to do yet. But, it still looks pretty darn good with just a little work.)

 

[Craig]

Both Nuvite and Flitz work well and will get you to a mirror finish. Understand that it takes time and a lot of work to get there.

 

[Albany Tom]

If you used a plastic paint removal pad on the angle grinder, it might not be too bad. But if you used a flap wheel, or a hard grinding wheel, I'd start out at just above whatever that grit was with a random orbital sander, until you get rid of the grinding scratches, and keep going up in grit. Then I'd use whatever system Kenny W posted above was, because that looks beautiful.

 

[Gary Ward]

There are many good polishes that will do the job. I like Autosol...

I have done lots of polish on trucks, trailers, race cars and now a little on airplanes.
I did the spinner on my 172. First I stripped the paint off of it, it had a thick layer of paint filling the marks on it from manufacture and it was not made to polish.
I stated with 600, should have started with 320 or 400. I was a little lazy but also realistic. You have to have some limits when polishing because it can go off the deep end with it.

Anyway I wet sanded it by hand a couple grits each night with soap water. Worked my way up to 2000 grit. You can get it to polish at 2000 but like I said you can keep going to 2500-3000 etc if you wanted.

About halfway wet sanded to maybe 1000 grit.

Polished the tip with a rag and by hand.

Used a buffer to polish it.

Did my hangar tables while I had the buffer out.

It is a messy job.

Good luck with your project. I get satisfaction from polishing stuff.

 

[Silvaire]

One word - Nuvite.

 

[AdamZ]

Great info everyone thanks so much!

 

[21541803]

Painting the aircraft after being polished for years, is the prep for painting any different from prepping bare Aluminium?

 

[nrpetersen]

Isn't there a longitudinal weld in these needle point Cessna spinners? I recall that anodize appears quite different over that line.

 

[Gary Ward]

Isn't there a longitudinal weld in these needle point Cessna spinners? I recall that anodize appears quite different over that line.

I don't think there was any weld inside the spinner on the one I have?

 

[Bell206]

Looking for advice on what kind of compound to get to polish aluminum.

Met-All Aluminum Polish. However if there is any painted surface near the polish area need to mask off as the black residue will stain it.