Polishing Cranks

I was considering polishing out my Dura Ace crankarms. All of the logos have pretty much been rubbed off and it's starting to look pretty bad. I was thinking of using steel wool and sanding down the cranks till the clear coat and all blemishes are removed and then using metal polish and buffing it out with a dremel. Then take it to a buddy's autobody shop and have him shoot a coat of clear to protect the finish. Has anyone else ever done this and if so do you have any experiences, recommendations or methods that you have used that works well?

 

Yeah,but my 'finish' has been a couple coats of johnsons floor wax.

 

Even #0000 steel wool is too coarse. A dremel tool can easily overheat an area and discolor it.

Try Mother's Mag and Alum Cleaner/Polisher. Small red/white can in Auto supply store. Easy to wipe on and off. Aluminum gets so shiny it almost looks like chrome after many uses. Neat stuff.

 

Finally finished. Looks better than what the picture shows. There are still some fine scratches but it's good enough for me. It will eventually get scratched again but at least it looks better than what it did a few weeks ago. Took about 5 to 6 hours on my free time. Here's a before and after.

 

Wow! Nice job! Did you use the technique described in your original post?

 

Kinda. I saw a post by someone else who polished out his cranks and somewhat followed his technique. First, I used coarse steel wool but eventually used 150 grit sandpaper to get out all the nicks and deep scratches. It doesn't really mater at that point because you will sand down to a smooth bare metal finish. Then progessively went to 220, 330 then wetsanded with 600, 1000, 1500. It is pretty important to wetsand as the grit from the material removed will become abrasive and the water will help lubicrate and remove the fine loose grits from rescratching the surface. Then I used 000 fine steel wool that is used for buffing. This is what really will bring out the shine. I was pretty amazed at that point. I then took mag wheel polish and finished it off with a dremel with a polishing pad but you can use an old t-shirt or cotton towel. If you want to be anal about it, I suppose you can use polishing compound to take out the real fine scratches.

The lazy person way if you don't want to spend too much time is just to substite the sandpaper with coarse to medium to fine steel wool. Then use metal or other polish to buff out to a shiny finish. Could have probably saved half the time.