My polished ARC...

After I learned the way to strip anodizing I began to play around with polishing small parts. After gaining the courage I finally tried one of my most valued lights and polished my modded ARC-LS (reflector,TWOK,667mA)....It turned out well with only a Dremel tool to polish with.
Can anyone tell me a good product to use to finish this up with. I used a product called Never-Dull with average results.
Enjoy the pics and let me know any tricks you may have to get that extra mirror look I have seen on other polished lights.

Hi,

really nice result.

How did you strip off the ano?

I`ve tryed that with two of my surefires that have some heavy usage marks but it was very hard, even with the dremel.

Greets,

Bernd

Sodium hydroxide is used to strip the ano. Its common name is lye usually used as drain cleaner.

I usually sand it down with 1000 grit sandpaper to remove all fine scratches, then use 3M 1500 grit polish/scratch remover to get the mirror finish like the ones I posted here. Scroll down to one of the bottom posts.

Link

Robo,

Try Flitz.

MSax

these brands seems to be known in the usa, but here we don`t know them. But thanks although. I`ll try a drain cleaner that i can get here. Maybe a paint thinner will work too, what do you think?

How did you remove the lens, my SF`s lenses seems to be glued.

panzergrennie it has to be lye and the type I used was a powder form labeled Red Devil drain cleaner. I used 2 teaspoons in about 8 ounces of water. Drop it in the water and watch it closely...mine took about 2 minutes and after rinsing in cold water the anodizing simply rubbed off.

I really do not think paint thinner will work as anodizing is actually part of the aluminum and a chemical bond. It is not any form of paint so I believe other chemicals will not work. I do not know how it works but the lye was the only thing I found to strip the anodizing off.

Billson those lights are simply amazing....that is the look I am hoping for and now that the hardest part is done I can concentrate on further polishing. I have had many tell me to try the Flitz brand of polish and I will check my local Lowes today. Does the brand of polish really make a difference? I thought all would basically have the same base chemicals and would all work about the same. Is this Flitz polish designed for strictly aluminum? I just noticed the stuff I used to start my polishing job with stated it was mainly for brass yet works well on all metals.
Would it be best to look for an aluminum specific polish or is there even such a thing?

Billson also how did you get the lazer engraved writing and logo off of the bezel? Mine still says ARC on the end and I really do not mind however it looks like yours are completly bare of all writing.
When you said you used sand paper did you wet sand your lights with 1000 grit paper?

best thing to use is polishing compound and a buffing wheel. but elbow grease with a cloth is slower but works fine.

polishing compound comes in several different grits. for finished aluminum like your ARC LS after stripping. you need only finest grit. it's easy to get a perfect smooth finish with soft aluminum.

common chrome polishing compound is availble at most auto parts stores. next courser is plain polishing compound for car paint. these come is paste form. what I personally use comes in solid square bars. different colors to ID grits.

I used to polish parts for satin anodizing and chrome plating at a plating shop just out of high school. We used HUGE polishing riggs spinning at high speeds. very dangerous! easy to loose a finger. One of the polishers I worked with was missing a finger/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

I use plain 'ol Brasso. I chuck the part in the lathe using protective support and with a piece of cloth I polish it, after 30 secs it looks like polished silver.


Pablo

Nice polish job,
nice that you got the lettering to stay on there also.

I use Flitz polish,... and the lathe /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

what is plain òl brasso?

double post

It is a US brass polish. It has been around forever! Trade name is Brasso.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Edit: Not just US jdriller, we have it here as well. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Nice job, Robo!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

I've tried a couple of polishing compounds and nothing works like Flitz... expensive, though, so I only use it sparingly.

How'd you get the guts out?

If someone needs help stripping ano, drop me a PM and I may be able to help you.

Great pic, B@rt.

Once you get it stripped and polished what do you need to do to keep it looking like that?

Robocop,

I used sandpaper on the engraving at the same time I was stripping the anodizing. It came off rather easily with some light rubbing. I wet-sanded with 1000 grit sandpaper because that was the finest I could find at the time. The smoother the surface, the shinier it will be so you will want to look for the finest grade sandpaper you can find. Then I used the 3M 1500 grit liquid polish to get the mirror finish. I heard there are polishes as high as 5000 grit but I've never seen any yet. I repeated the process many times sanding and polishing because it won't be until after polishing that you will see any imperfections in the finish and I don't have any power tools so it took some effort and a lot of frustration to accomplish.

I don't think the brand of polish is important as long as it's safe for aluminum since the one I'm using is actually an automotive polish for car paints.

I guess maintaining is simply to avoid scratching it. Otherwise, you just have to polish it again.

Not a expert on finishing materials, but I use the finer grits at work as burnishers for electrical contacts. Many automotive refinishing supply shops handle these fine grains. One manufacturer that makes a fine product: http://www.meguiars.com/estore/product_list.cfm?sectionname=Professional%20(Mirror%20Glaze%20Brand)>Abrasives>Finishing%20Papers&sectionID=37101
The auto shop near me sells the single sheets of each grit from 40 grit to 2500 grit. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I just learned on one of Endeavour's threads (IIRC), that you can use steel wool too (#0000). I did a couple of mirror-polish Infinity lights, but keeping them scratch free is a major pain. On one of them, what I did after sanding with the finest grade I have (1000 or 2500- not home to check), was to dab a bit of Dremel red polishing compound and work it in circles all over the light. After that I brought out the shine with some cheapo metal polish and then some Flitz. The light still shone nicely, and from a distance you couldn't see the really fine lines, but you could see smooth circles all over when looking closely. The good thing was that I did not have to worry about putting more scratches on the body, it was already "scratched", so to speak. I was never able to capture the effect with my camera so I gave up. I gave the light to my brother.

BTW, is this what people call "brush polish"?