The Yamaha Road Star Warrior Forum

Thanks Jason.

speedy is a polish and its way way better than mothers last longer and is easyer to use.. i have polished over 20 wheels in one month before off of rockets and used every polish know to man and speedy IS THE BEST. snap-on polish is not bad and i used it a lot, but thats because i use to work for them.. but speedy is the way to go.

picture of what i refer to as the loufa attachment, been asked a few time what the heck i was refering too, well here it is, sorry for the confusion over it....

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I use wenol and have been for years... Its the best stuff for me

I'll throw in my two cents worth and some pics to help explain. I'll generally only sand up to 400 grit. This depends on the hardness of the material. The harder the material the finer I sand. In the pics you#%92ll see the 400 grit next to the first stage of buffing with Emery Grit on a buff wheel. Now, mind you there are two more stages to go after Emery Grit (Tripoli and White Rouge) but hopefully you#%92ll see the reason you can skip a lot of sanding. I feel in most cases you#%92ll go backwards if you sand to 1500 grit then start buffing. As stated before this is relative to the hardness of the material and all aluminum is not the same hardness.
This was the first time I've ever taken a pic during the process. I seem to forget to get the camera out till it's all over.
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Cool post DFW! I have done some myself but the hard way. I used to ride sport bikes and polished out the frame and wheels on my CBR. All by hand with out the benefit of a wheel or the right materials.

One question...where can I find a fine file like you are talking aobut?

Thanks, JC

Shadow sent you a pm before finding this post! can get them at Lowes or Home Depot. i bought the 3 piece file set, it goes from corse to fine in the set, as stated in the pm, even with filing, you will still have to sand the piece to remove any filing marks that may have been left over.

hello,just thought I like to say a word to help. I spent many hour learning and redoing pieces only to be somewhat at the same acheivement as maybe two previous proceedures ago. MAN that is frustrating . IT already been mention by these other bros. but CAN"T stress enough to keep the area you a work on clean as you sand , strip clearcoat, etc. ONE method I use is lacquer thinner and steel wool , all parts in alumiumn are different, in working with, but I usually start with medium grade ., (clean as you go with Lacguer) also I put parts in a strong cooking pan such as what you cook a brisket 0r a large tuperware container . MAKES a good bathtub for your parts while shinng ., LACGUER thinner gets expensive . seem to work better in a pan of some sort . (MORE clean RAGS) clean as you rub and polish, then I go to fine grade REPEAT above. then 00 grade .repeat. 0000 I shine the results with pexlus, if you get finger prints fron the oil in you hand a good course wash rag a good dash of LACquer thinner work"s good to lift the spot and feather your shine right back. I done my most pices on my 2002 warrio this way . soon I"ll have some pics. I've had alot of complements on this crude country back porch polishing. hope this helps some of you, wailen ( STARCRAZY)

For polishing supplys go to grizzly.com and check them out.

Warning - Do not try to polish stuff yourself!!! 

I followed slopoke's instructions to a T on a grungy old rear hub on a street tracker project I'm working on and it turned out GREAT!!  Now i have to unlace my front wheel and do it all over again so it matches the rear.  I can see where this is going. Next it'll be engine covers, then forks, etc. 

Unless you want to spend the next year in front of a grinder, don't even start!