The Wife's New to Her 96 VFR750

Hey Randy

Seeing as you are in BC, you can find meteal polishing kits at Princess Auto. They come in a box that includes a small instruction booklet on how to use the rouge and a varying selection of buffs that you can attach to a drill. Works really well if you want to do smaller jobs.

Here is a link to the Princess Auto in Langely and the kit that I mentioned. They also have some larger kits with more rouge compounds and larger buffs.

http://www.princessauto.com/pal/en/...h=+&_DARGS=/pal/include/header.jsp.searchForm

In the kit that shows up in the link, the black bar is for heavy duty polishing, the red is for mild polishing, and the white is for finish polishing. It is a good idea to have a separate buff for each compound so as not to mix up the varying grits.

 

Yes, I have a bit of a winter project. It's OK, I honestly enjoy this kind of project. There are those who might say that a clean bike is the sign of a sick mind. Well if that is the case, just consider me a mental case. For those who have not actually met me or seen my bike in person, just ask Randy. He has seen my bike, he knows my disease...........

 

Yes. It does shine. Almost as shiny as my High Brown Boots and Sam Brown holster did back in the day. Spurs were kept glistening too. We actually ironed our boots before we polished them. They used to be made from cowhide from the ass end of the cow so they would press pebbling into the leather to hide the poor grain of the hide. We had to get rid of those bumps before we hit the boot with the polish. No patent leather in our kit like the Marines have.

 

I was trying to upload a video of how to use the jewelers rouge but apparently a video from my iPhone is not an allowable file type to upload. Oh well.

Process might be a bit more difficult to do with a drill, but if you drill a small hole in narrow side of a 2x4 and secured it in a vice (or a bunch of holes) and threaded the fairing bolts in to the holes, that might be strong enough to hold the bolts while you held the drill. Another option would be to secure a nut in the vice that has the same threads as the fairing bolts and then tighten the fairing bolts in to the nut. This would probably hold the fairing bolts the best and then you could easily maneuver the polishing buff around the head of the bolts. If the fairing bolts don't hold tight enough they might fly off and hit something, so a bit of care and attention to safety is a good idea here and definitely wear safety goggles. The rouge does fly off the spinning wheel and gets all oveeer the place so it is a bit of a messy job. I have now polished all the fairing bolts on Angie's bike and it took less than a half hour. I LOVE THIS THING !!!

Ooooo, oooooooo, what else can I make shiny????

 

Well, I have completed part of the pieces on the bike and re-installed them. Can you see a difference?? Oh Gawd, I must be nuts............... but I LIKE IT, I LIKE IT, I LIIIIIIKE IT!!!

Quick, someone send the padded wagon for me.............................................


View attachment 24693 View attachment 24694 View attachment 24695

 

Another task, get busy with an exacto or small knife blade and straighten out the bent oil cooler fins, radiator too.

 

Actually, I have a radiator fin rake that I got from a friend at a body shop a while ago, and I used it to do the fins on her bike already. Did the rad and oil cooler on her bike, and then did the rads and oil cooler on my bike as well. Good tip though.

 

Mr. Z., which one do you have ?
And very nice job on the polishing. You can tell who the enthusiast is

 

I've recently done that to a 5 ton airconditioning condensor coil with a tiny screw driver. Fucking deadly. Took me days to do that.

 

Looks very similar to the ones on the right. It was made by Snap-On no less, so I would hate to guess as to the cost.

 

I wonder if the swing arm would polish up like that. Those pieces look good Zoom.
John

 

I remember when I bought my polishing wheel this summer. I bought 2 sticks of compound and went to town on the bike. Nothing as big as the rear sets, but every exposed bolt was cleaned thoroughly. Even buffed the front axle!

Thing about the rear sets as I was told - don't you have to seal them now that you have buffed them? To get that shiny, I thought you had to go through the OEM coating.

 

Aha, found a picture of my nasty fairing bolts!



Gotta love those buffing wheels.

 

I was wondering the same thing about coating them with a clear acyclic or something. Wouldn't they be prone to rust after such a polishing? Some people are dumb enough to ride in adverse weather around here. Stupid shits.

 

I thought i would would use some aluminum sealer called Shine Seal on them. Way back when I did the rear sets on my 97 VFR I used a product called Zoop Seal and after treating them once I never had to touch them again. Nearly 30,000 km's and quite a few washes and the Zoop seal kept them as shiny as the day I sealed them. From what I understand, Shine Seal is basically the same product.

Funny thing was, when I went to start polishing I just used some Autosol polish to see if there was a factory coating. When the rag came off black after barely two swipes, I determined there was either no coating on there, or it been totally worn off. Either way, they looked terrible, so shiny they will be.

 

Thanks for the compliments John. I have seen a couple VFR's over the years with chrome plated swing arms and they looked really cool. After chatting on the OZVFR site with one guy who had it done he mentioned the plating shop had a hell of a time getting the swing arm smooth enough to plate. Apparently smoothing out the textured finish was a PIA. I think it would look really cool, but it would be a huge amount of work.

 

Yes they can oxidize the same as any other type of metal so I will be applying a sealer of some sort. The wheels on your truck as an example are polished aluminum, and the reason they look they are rusting, is the water gets under the clear coat applied to the wheel after it is polished and then it oxidizes and peels the clear. The bare aluminum will tarnish much like your good silver. If you polish it regularly then it stays shiny. Though I don't mind polishing regularly, I will apply a coating to prevent having to do it monthly, as that would get a bit tedious.

 

I did the same deal to all of my fairing fasteners, and they don't stay shiny for that long without any protection from the elements. I may have to locate some of this sealer you speak of...

 

So. I picked up a polishing kit from Princess Auto. Then picked up some clear nail polish at the cosmetics dept of local Shoppers Drugmart. Like, i felt like everyone in that store was watching me buy nail polish. Then I walk down the feminie hygene isl to get out of the store! DOH!

 

Here is a link to the I website. Though I have yet to try this particular sealer it seems to be the same stuff as Zoop Seal.

http://www.shineseal.com