Polishing a frame & swingarm

[loply]

Evening folks,

Well further to my thread about polishing rearsets & downpipes, my frame and swingarm are fairly tatty and the idea occured to me that I could polish them completely. There's chips of paint missing in places and slight rust spots in others. I have quite an extensive polishing collection all of a sudden, so I'm tempted to utilise it.

They're currently finished in a desaturated gold color, which chips off in places so I gather it's painted and then lacquered? Both the frame and swingarm are aluminium pieces.

Anyway my question is what are the options for refinishing them afterwards?

Can I polish them to a high polish and then simply lacquer them? If possible I'd like to do this - But I don't know if its a valid method.

Chroming would be too expensive and too tarty for my tastes and wallet.

Could I achieve a nice finish with an automotive sprayer and some automotive paint?

Is having the frame and swingarm anodised an option?

Thanks for any input.
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Yamaha SZR660 Caution to the wind, the throttle pinned!

[the grim reaper]

Anodised, maybe. Polished, NONONONONONONONONONONONO, it looks horrible and is a complete pig to maintain, polished frames and swingarms are the equivalent of furry dice, IMO.

Cheers

Grim
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Adverts don't always work: Remember that advert, where the army are running across the desert and they have a wounded man on a stretcher. They get to a ravine, the bridge is down and a caption pops up that says, 'What are you thinking?'. I don't know about you but I was thinking, 'Christ, I'm glad I'm not in the f***ing army'.

[Blau Zedong]

Really you need to strip the bike and get the bits bead blasted to a smooth finish in lieu of polishing them up. I know a lot of people that havn't bothered laquering after polishing, and keep on top of it with autosol, although it is labour intensive. Lacquering is sound idea but if it chips or peels and allows corrosion to form it spreads under the lacquer and looks awful (see most suzuki's). I would take advice from a blaster / painter that specialises in bikes, he will be able to advise you of the best way to end up with a durable finish. Once the finish becomes tatty you have no option but to go down the polishing route - anodising big complex castings will cost ££££££.
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18:54:48 Rob Fzs: jews don't give away stuff for free

18:54:59 Rob Fzs: unless its their clothes/ hair/ golden teeth

[mrtEE]

[0ddball]

[loply]

[Blau Zedong]

What sort of finish is on the alloy at the moment?
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18:54:48 Rob Fzs: jews don't give away stuff for free

18:54:59 Rob Fzs: unless its their clothes/ hair/ golden teeth

[loply]

It's painted in a low-saturation gold color.

I'm sure it's painted on account of the fact that it's scraped off and chipped off in places, revealing a dark brown underlayer (the color of a well used 1p coin).

This may be primer of some sort, or just scum left over from the underside of the topcoat?
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Yamaha SZR660 Caution to the wind, the throttle pinned!

[loply]

Best picture I could find, doesnt give you a very good idea of finish type, but at least you can see the color:

https://img139.exs.cx/img139/4337/blauwyamahaszr6603eo.jpg
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Yamaha SZR660 Caution to the wind, the throttle pinned!

[craigs23]

If it is ally, it will polish.

There are a couple of methods involved to get a good finish. I prefer a more hands on approach using wet and dry.

WARNING! THIS IS VERY PERMENANT AND MAY COMPROMISE THE VALUE OF YOUR BIKE (some see polished frames and what not as disguising crash damage) I did and they are currently sitting unused in my garage - I didn't like the lack of control they didn't give. So I use wet'n'dry. The original finish depends entirely on what grade to start with. Original finish - 240 grit; quite a bit of hard work at this stage, but it gets easier (relatively) when moving up the grades. Remove all surrounding bodywork/obstructions, fill a bucket of water, apply a tiny amount of washing up liquid, tear a hand sized patch of wet'n'dry up and then sand away like you would paintwork. Keep the surface saturated.

For painted/laquered surfaces you may want to try Nitro Morsing first. I have little experience with this stuff, but heard it works pretty well (won't remove the finish of a frame though). Anyway, gradually move up the grit levels - the key is to be patient - it will take a while. Miss a spot and leave a deep(ish) scratch in your metal work and it will show in the levels thereafter, so be careful not to just hack away in the first stages. Once you've moved up the 240-500-800-1000-1200-1500 grit stages and most sratches have been polished away (along with the original finish) dry thoroughly and then apply some Autosol to a cloth. Use the same technique as described for metal polishing above.

My (previous) two-wheeled furry dice:

https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/whers84/mirrorpolish.jpg

My Blade top yoke, this is the kinda finish obtainable with wet and dry:

https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/whers84/DSC01710.jpg

[Jack_Cheese]

Use nitromors to get rid of the paint, wet and dry it as craig says. When i did mine, i then got an electric polishing mop and rubbing compound and used that. The 1500 grit and autosol didnt seem to work for me, so i used the rubbing compound and then the autosol and mine came up like a mirror. It's the first piece of metal i've ever polished and didn't come out too bad.

https://w1.bikepics.com/pics/2006/07/11/bikepics-631386-full.jpg

Not up to craig's standards, but for a first go and little effort it's not a bad result.

By the way, if/when you use nito mors, get a ventillator, and do not let it come into contact with anything you value, including yourself. It's the most effective paint stripper out there, but it'll eat most plastics and rubbers (including your tyres according to some...). It also needs disposing of very carefully.

[Kickstart]

Hi

Personally I would not do it. Far too much work in the future to keep it shiney.

You could get it powder coated or anodised, but both would require stripping the bike entirely. I understand than Spondon Engineering can anodise frames. No idea of cost.

All the best

Keith
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