How can i bring a shine to my forks that are looking dingy and spotty, they have grey spots and stuff on them. I tried mothers aluminum and mag pollish but it doesnt seem to be doing much of anything to sine it. My friend uses it on his aluminum parts that he makes with his machinery and it looks super shiny. Why cant i get my forks and other non chrome parts to shine?
Some of it has a clear coat on it, even if a piece doesn't have any clearcoat you'll have to get past the oxidation before it will polish out. If it has clearcoat Dad's paint will remove the clearcoat (better if you remove the part so you don't get any on painted parts)then progressive sanding then a good high speed buffer.. You won't get very far very fast hand polishing.. Good luck.
Charles is absolutely correct. You must remove the clearcoat in order to polish the aluminum parts. I've polished several smaller pieces with great success. You can remove the clearcoat by sanding or buffing, but it is a whole lot easier if you can strip it off first.
my '94 had no clearcoat.
I used "Speedy" 1st step with some steel wool and rubbed down my front forks. (to remove the machine marks that Honda never smoothed out.
When that was done, I used "Speedy" metal polish and it came out like chrome...
It took between 2-3 hours per leg and I did not remove the leg from the bike.
My reply was refering to the "forks and other parts" is why I put, some of it, meaning anything aluminum that may or may not have clear coat. What it takes to polish it out depends on the condition of the aluminum. I've had some pieces that would polish out with something as simple as Mothers Aluminum Polish, to pieces that required sanding passed the oxidation then starting the polishing process from there.