I aim to cover as many aspect of this as possible to help those who wish to polish to do the best job they can with the least effort,
giving tips on suppliers for materials, dispelling incorrect rumours regarding all things shiney
and hopefully to make this as easy a read to understand as possible, 

ok, lets hit the polishing v/s powder coating argument on the head
hopefully getting this out the way will pave a nice clear path for all to understand that polishing is not as bad a head ache as many imagine it will be
to both do & maintain

polishing v/s powder coating:-
first off, polishing is a process that takes a porous material that although flat to look at using the naked eye
is actually furrowed akin to a ploughed field when viewed under such as a microscope,
the process of polishing is to remove / reduce the furrows to as little a thing as possible,
now, if you think logically for just a brief moment,
imagine a corregated roof sheet stood so the corregations are all horizontal
if it was to rain, the horizontal slats of the sheet would serve as ideal places to retain water..
water retention then leads to concentrations of all the impurities that we have in rain water,
needless to say if rainwater alone can eat away a sandstone building, your aluminium is not going to provide it with much of a challenge to stop this 'oxidisation'
polishing will effectively take away the ruts and ridges which serve to hold water,
effectively making a corregated sheet into a flat sheet which water would run off easier, therefore less water retention
which inturn would greatly reduce oxidisation etc,
there is further things we can do to polished surface to aid this and protect the surface finish further
which I will cover later in this write up,

powdercoating,
critics of polishing will at this point be laughing their heads off at the above comments regards aluminium and polishing,
as they are right in thinking that logically to coat something in plastic will therefore stop all water contact
therefore giving a far longer lfie to the finished surface = effectively winning the battle of water v/s metal finishing
except for one thing..... they'd be wrong to think this,
powder coat is actually porous 
and will allow water to get through,
then theres the additional issues of coating degrading over time & issues such as stone chipping which can and will damage the coating itself
therefore leading to water being allowed to come into contact with metal surface
subsequently corrosion can and will occur
the following pic is of a wishbone which had been powder coated 5yrs previous,


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polishing involves very definite stages,
complete each stage thoroughly using good materials / tools and success is pretty much guaranteed
it is a labourious task to do,but the rewards are well worth the effort

stage 1 -
item preparation,
items may well be painted, powder coated previously or simply dirty & greasy from prior use
remove any surface finishes using chemical strippers and or de-greaser (jizer is a personal fave)
pay particular attention to any recesses in surface etc,
powder coat stripping in progress:-


once stripped you should have something like this


congratulations, your now ready to start doing the polishing prep itself
the surface as shown in the above pic has been media blasted prior to powder coating,
they do this to aid adhesion of the coating,
great for powder coat, not so good for polishing,
I prefer to hand prep surfaces to be polished, you can get flap wheels and also scotchbrite wheels which will prep far quicker
the downside from experience is the harshness of these, which can deform the part
as an example of this a flat surface can and will become deformed with hollow dishes as you try to work away the imperfections
getting these out is far harder as it will require hand finishing to do
EG: its easier to do it by hand to start than to rectify damage incurred using prep wheels

hand prep for polishing:-
not as hard as it sounds your working with aluminium which by its very nature is a soft material
a little effort goes a long way 
I recommend using 600 grit wet & dry on course surfaces and 800 grit wet & dry on smoother surfaces
to start with,
as you start you will initially see a flatness appearing on surface
alongside this you may well notice indentations or scratches
afterall the part is likely to have had a hard life prior to polishing, so this is to be expected
the above is shown nicely in this pic:-


avoid concentrating your efforts on just the spot where the marks appear,
as this will create hollows / dips in the final surface finish which will show up badly when the sunshine hits it
(on the other 364 days of the year it will look too bad I s'pose lol)
aim to spread the sanding action much over a much further surface area for best results
the finish look to this stage should be something similar to this

the observant out there will of spotted the imperfection marks on the far left
behave, i'm more of a perfectionist than that, these are simply water droplets 

I wont be showing pics of the following stages as from the first stage of polishing
you actually start to produce a shiney surface
showing the difference between stage 1 and final stage is tricky to do using a camera,
however....

pre-polishing prep talk - probably the most important part of this:-
ok, polishing supplies.
to the uninitiated a polishing mop or stick of polishing compound is simply that,
and why fork out for the dearer stuff when I can grab it far cheaper off ebay !!
best advice I can give to anyone thinking this is simply save your money and efforts doing polishing,
& take your parts across to your local powder coaters,
you will be quite simply wasting your time and effort before you start,
polishing compound is an abrasive material which is held in suspension by a holding agent,
the polishing compound is expensive - the agent is cheap = what your buying is more agent than abrasive
it will not do the same job as a better product,
likewise with mops cheaper materials which are not so tolerant to the process are used so your mops disappear quicker
also the mop itself will be abrasive to a certain extent where as a quality mop will not be so abrasive
in turn your finish will be far better with a quality mop than a cheap one,
quality is everything when it comes to polishing.............
through trial and error I found the best company to use for polishing supplies
is a place in atherstone, warwickshire called 'perfect polishing'
they not only manufacture their own mops and polishes
but will happily talk you through the process or give advice over the fone for free
for as long as it takes for you to know how to achieve the best results
they're starter kits are more expensive than ebay ones can be had for, but are top quality
im not related to the owners, I have no vested interests in the company but dearly love the service and goods they offer

ok, on to stage 2 polishing,
you can do this using mops attached to a hand drill,
but again I heartily advise investing in a decent bench grinder to attach mops to via an adapter known as a 'pigtail'
you will be free to use both hands to steady and hold the parts being polished and gain better results for having the bench grinder

attach first course mop (known as sisal) and select first stick known as 'course'
you need to prepare the mop with a liberal coating of the compound
but not too much, once applied wait a minute or two as this is quite abrasive and requires time to set to the mop,
theres two polishing actions used in polishing,
known as cut and colour 
EG:- on a bench grinder, with either method the mop will be rotating towards you in a downward motion,
with 'Cut stage' you work the parts moving forward and away from you,
this is the most abrasive manner of contact between the part and the mop
it will give a uniformly dull look to the part, but continue to do this until you have the best surface finish possible
once you have this, do the part again as you will notice an improvement 
the better the finish the better the results,
you can then go onto the colour step of this wheel
this time using the same mop and compound,
move the part with the direction of the wheel
bringing the part from the rear edge of the wheel towards the front - towards you,
do this nice at as even a contact speed as possible,
you will notice the part become shinier than the cut stage
again proceed until you have all areas of the part done and take a breather,
you will of earned it by now lol

stage 3:-
before you entertain the idea of changing the mop and dressing it with the medium compound,
lets first of all thoroughly wash the part with hot soapy water to remove any residue from the previous polishing session
don't forget that was a far more abrasive compound and some of the constituent abrasive will be present on the surface
cross contamination of parts and mops will kill finish and mops equally ultimately rendering them useless,

the actual polishing process basics are the same for this stage as for the previous
cut and finish, but do not cut any corners, do the job properly
your putting the effort in now so you wont have to when its back on the car / bike or whatever your polishing the part for.
trust me, this is very important 
once stage 3 is complete again wash with hot soapy water to remove any chance of contamination
and your on to stage 4

stage 4 :- final finishing
basics are the same as above,
cut and colour,
pay particular attention to the speed in which you feed across the mop surface
you really want to allow that final fine compound to do its job,
the finish of the colour stage should see a perfect finish that is almost chrome like with no fine scratching to surface
you may have some very fine lining but do not panic, this can be addressed after the mopping,
using a good protectant polish such as 'Mothers' compound for aluminium
or alternatively autosol can be used but there is a top tip to using autosol on mirror polishing
top tip - apply autosol to cloth, and firstly use it on a scrap piece of flat ally sheet
this will allow the scrap piece to be used to take the grittiness that is initially felt when using autosol out of the compound
before you apply it onto the fine mirrored surface
autosol is far to abrasive straight out of the tube to go directly onto your polishing
knock its abrasiveness back by pre-using it on scrap before you destroy the surface finish you have worked so hard to achieve

ok, so this completes how to polish your parts,
a few example pics at this point might encourage you to give it a go before
we hit the looking after your polishing section of this write up 

EG 1:-
I brought a pair of brake discs off ebay that the seller claimed had polished centres
as seen here,


wished I could of seen his face when I emailed him the ics of them after they had been polished properly

mmm should of put a claim in for mis-describing the item lol

EG 2:-
speedo removed in favour of using gps speedo app on fone, & all ally polished,


EG 3:-
Nos Bottle (1) purchased finished in powder coat,
stripped, hand prepped to remove shot blast surface finish
and polished,
nearly everything seen in this pic is pure reflection,
taken to show lack of fine surface scratching and that true mirror polished finish


and a sneaky shot of nos bottle attached to bike
all polishing & also paintwork done by myself


the observant amoungst us will of spotted this bit titled Nos bottle (1)
reason for this - theres actually 2 nos bottles


and from the back,

Nice writeup dude. I will be partaking in a little polishing further into the build 

another aspect of preparation I feel I should cover is cast markings etc,
often when aluminium is cast at the factory the mould marks are touched up to be acceptable
which is often not good enough and unsightly on a finished polished part,
its also possible to make alterations and adaptions to the casting in initial prep stage prior to polishing
the following example pics serve to show an insight into this
and may I add that all stages in the prep and ultimately the polishing are all hand done in these pics,
no powered mops were used
just hands with compounds and abrasives etc,

this pic shows the wheel rim after it has been chemically stripped
with the 'blasted finish' still on view,
in the pic the dotted line highlights a 'cast web' which goes between the 3 spokes of the wheels
this is often mistaken as some kind of strengthening method
it is simply a casting indicator used in production
to show the die-caster that the aluminium has flowed correctly into the mould and a successful casting is produced
if any failure was to happen during the casting there would be issues of gaps in this point
the reason these are not removed is it simply wouldn't be cost effective
as it would taken 100 times longer to remove them than it took to make the rim in first place

in the pic the red arrow is pointing to a raised edge,
purely cosmetic in its origins and as such not needed,
you can also see the actual rim edge that sits next to the tyre once its on,
this is dished as seen in pic,

ok, to the plan for the reworking of this wheel,
1 - remove cast webbing from between spokes
2 - remove cosmetic raised edge
3 - remove dishing to rim edge to make flat
4 - remove manufacturers raised cast lettering / identification marks from spokes

and so the fun begins,
using the one & only mechanical device that I used to do these wheels
(black & decker power file - electric linishing machine)
I ground away the raised cosmetic ridge, rim edge and centre casting web
the end results of this were rough & very uneven to say the least


this surface was then hand sanded using nothing more than wet & dry paper until perfectly smooth
did I mention this was done by hand ?
pic showing tape being used to act as skin surface as my own had been lost due to paper slipping in fingers
and literally sanding the flesh off the bone - kid ya not 


eventually after many hours of hard labour
the wheel looked like this, just about ready to start the polishing
note how smoothed out the actual rim looks now theres no centre cast between spokes or raised cosmetic edge?


the 3 stages of polishing as posted above in previous post where adhered to
and finally after many more hours we get to the finished item,
work in process -


centre bearing hub


and the finished wheel


finished wheel back on bike minus brake discs

footnote regards aftercare

I mentioned in the first part regards how water will sit on imperfect surfaces,
and that a flat surface cant hold water as well as a corregated one can,
the key to maintaining polishing is to protect it,
no matter how much or how well you polish aluminium it will always be porous
as such it can and will hold water which in turn will accelerate oxidisation of the surface
(powder coating advocates are laughing at me now lol)

the key to protecting your polishing is to clean it using autosol as described to use in above write ups
or a less abrasive polishing compound such as mothers polish
once done simply apply a decent car wax to the surface which will not only fill any minute pores
but cover the surface in a layer of protecting wax,

take a look out in the street at your neighbours cars after a decent bit of rain
you'll see a fair few cars all wet,
but others look dry,
the dry ones are owned by folks who regularly wax their cars
the water simply beads off them
if it cannot lay on the surface it cannot evaporate leaving those all to annoying dried circles of white powder
which is all the impurities in rain water, or acid rain as we should call it

waxing your polishing will prevent oxidisation,
protecting it from even the harshest of abuse,

polishing biggest enemy is water & damp
stop this from lying on the surface and your on to a winner

so can you actually leave a polished item out exposed to all weathers - YES
and to prove just this very point
my current bike was left outside throughout the entire winter with no plastic sheet covering it
infact nothing at all to protect it from the elements
(heck im a rebel lol)

thanks to mother nature chucking her very worst at the bike
I certainly encountered the worse test scenario possible




after the big thaw I dragged the bike out to the front of the house,
simply washed it down using nothing more than standard car shampoo
and rinsed it off
following pics show that a good polish can and will protect polishing
and that you can be confident that with good aftercare that your efforts in polishing do not go to waste




footnote admission of wintering outside damage:-
the bike did suffer some effects / component damage to surface finishes
the pins that hold the footpegs on were corroded
alongside the linkage bar  between gears and gear lever
both were mild steel and in original factory finish and were coated in rust after the wintering,
all parts now machined out of stainless steel and polished to prevent this happening again lol

These are brilliant mate, and I shall be adding them to Buggypedia in due course 

amazing stuff,
yep agree with Dave, Definitely needs to be in the buggypedia section, I will deffintely be going back to that now and again to have a read 

thought i'd add a breakdown of set up costs and an insight into the sort of effectiveness of this cash outlay

my recommended suppliers 'perfect polishing'
list the following prices
machine (bench grinder) = £45.99
polishing kit currently listed @ £19.99
2 spindle adaptors (pigtails) = £13 the pair,
total cost = £78.98 exc delivery

this works out at less than it would cost to take a set of 4 wheels in to have them polished,
im still using the same initial polishing kit despite being on bike build number 4 
a rough estimate of how much it should of cost to get my 4 bikes polishing done professionally
is somewhere in the region of £1,500+
not a bad saving for an initial lay out and a bit of diy,
the savings increase as im now due my second kit which will only cost £19.99
as I have the machine already

I would hate to estimate how much powder coating would of cost by comparison lol