This is aimed at Ducky really...

Getting my Red Firestorm this weekend and it's, tets say 'not to my standard and far from Chris Ducky's when it comes to cleaning.

The wheels are stripped and poorly polished rims, the red front mudguard and seat cowl are pinking and need a really deep restoration polish.

The whole bike needs a massive degunk, mainly wheels, chain, sprockets etc.

Its' fitted with after market ally cans that need to come off and be polished within an inch of their lives.

I was after finding who is the cleaning god on here, past experience tells me it's Ducky. I am after advice on restoration and the best brands to use.

By the way i don't have the luxury of machine tools, polish wheels etc. It's gonna be elbow grease and some old t-shirts.

Cheers

 

Thought pink would suit you Steve?

 

Kingie - you're in Sittingbourne, right? I'm up on Sheppey and have a garage full of cleaning materials. If I can help, let me know.

Equally, if you want to get your wheels powder coated, call BP Coatings (they're down near to the Milton BP garage in S'bourne and charge about £50 for the pair).

 

Hearing that price makes me want to get my wheels done the same colour gold as the subaru rims

 

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

 

farecla g3 cutting compound to start with which is a harsh cutting compound and then g8 which is much more refined and will set the surface up nice for polish for which id buy maguires 3 stage system , paint cleaner to remove any impurities then a liquid crystal polich and finalise with the canuba wax to seal in the shine.
thats the paintwork...now the brightwork ..belgum alu is the gear that will bring most ali items up if you dont have a polish wheel and then follow on with maguires nxt metal polish to give it that sparkle ( personaly if i was you id invest in a polish mop and bench grinder kit off ebay and mirror polish the lot then the nxt to protect it......i could go much much deeper but not everyone wants to be as anal about it as me.

p.s if you manage to get a hold of a polish mop on a hand held polish wheel for the farecla ...make sure you keep the surface wet as other wise you will scorch the paint.

 

Oh gawd I feel sick

 

Yipeeee King back on a bike

 

Hey Steve, good to see you have a bike again!

If you're working by hand only, then you need a compound which doesn't require a machine to break its abrasives down. TBH depending on how bad the oxidization (pinking) is you could get reasonable results using the good ol' 'T-Cut' (bonus = cheap as chips)! I have a various selection of compounds etc in my garage which you're welcome to try.

For the aluminium (some serious elbow grease needed, would recommend a mop kit also), Autosol is good for cutting through the crap and then following up with a mild compound/cream like Belgum (mentioned earlier) which provides a nice finish with the bonus of a protective layer.

Degreasing wise, I use Bilt Hamber - Surflex HD (same as I used in my old chain cleaning post on another forum), not cheap but dilutes v.well so lasts longer than you think!

 

Your Welcome to come to me mate i will give you a hand any time

 

just to bolster both ducky and my advice ...if the ali has been previously polished or the laquer peeled then water has probably penetrated the ali ( remember ali is porous ) and will have left a water mark ....this is fookin hard graft to remove by hand if your determined not to splash out on a kit then your looking at abrasive papers like 1200 wet n dry then work down through the abrasive polishes till you get the required finish ......time estimate to get a mirror finish by hand on a front wheel with polished edges and water damage.....1 day ( and thats still ot gonna beat a machine finish)

 

Reckon Finchy'll be getting a sti££y about now, having read this.

 

k, thanks guys. got some pics

 

and

 

very good ...looks like a lot of elbow grease been used

 

Does look good mate

 

Looks good dude, I bet that took some elbow grease!

 

Looks positively sparkling!

You wanna do a VN?