Side case polishing question

[suck my pipe]

I'm in the process of polishing my side cases. I accidently got a little bit carried away with the 320 grit and put a fair amount of scratches in it, not gouges just very small scratches you cant see unless your up close to it, but any way these scratches are enough to keep my side case from being as shiny as I would like them to be. If I would use 800 Grit sand paper agenst the bare aluminum would it just make it worse ? :( please help me out.

[CBW]

It sounds as if you are polishing this case by hand,,,,No buffing motors or anything.....,,is this so???

If your answer is yes then the finer you go on the sandpaper to smooth out the case the easier it will be to get it to shine. I only go to 320 or 380 but then i have a buffing motor and compounds to finish everything off with.........good luck.......;)

[suck my pipe]

no, im using buffer and by hand i use my hand to polish cause i can apply more preshure and get the most of the oxidization off of the meatle then i use a buffer to shine it and i just keep doing this. Its pretty shinny now, but you know the top case in the picture you posted, well it has a few small scratches in it, mine are like that but theres alot more of them. I want to have them appear to be chrome, I know I can get them like that but I dont want to make them worse with 800 grit sand paper

Originally posted by CBW
It sounds as if you are polishing this case by hand,,,,No buffing motors or anything.....,,is this so???

If your answer is yes then the finer you go on the sandpaper to smooth out the case the easier it will be to get it to shine. I only go to 320 or 380 but then i have a buffing motor and compounds to finish everything off with.........good luck.......;) what he said^

i did thie set of case covers in this pic

[CBW]

Originally posted by suck my pipe
...... but you know the top case in the picture you posted,


:o ,yeah actually those arent scratches,,,,,,,,they were hazy spots caused from not having my wheel clean,,,,,i got them out of there before i sent it out the customer;) They looked like the swing arm for the same bike..........hope it meets with your approval........LOL:cool:

[suck my pipe]

No your stuff looks good, I wasent critacizing, or however you spel it lol but i was ompairing so you would know how big my scratches are, but mine are scratches :( I used 320, thats how the scratches got there in the first place.

[CBW]

Originally posted by suck my pipe
No your stuff looks good, I wasent critacizing, or however you spel it lol but i was ompairing so you would know how big my scratches are, but mine are scratches :( I used 320, thats how the scratches got there in the first place.


I know.......I was just being sarcastic..........no big deal;) :cool:


the higher you go in number of grit,,,IE: 600, 800, 1000, 1500.......the finer the papaer and the scratches, and the easier it will be to buff out. You need to hit it with some finer grit to get out your scratches........:)

[stiffy]

I did my side cases and they turned out well but they are still on the bike do I just have to drain out all of the oil and get new gaskets in order to take the whole case off of the bike?? And on the swingarm could I sand blast it w/ silica sand to take off the coating instead of stripper or would that kind of sand hurt it?

[bsf150]

I bead blasted my side cases to get the black factory paint off. I t worked great. After that I went from 400 - 800 grit sand paper, I still am going to go to 1500 grit paper. My swingarm on my R was polished when I got it, but bead blasting might work.