OK, I’m at my wits end and about ready to just say it’s good enough. I have just about finished restoring this tail panel and ready for paint. I cannot for the life of me get the top leading edge polished. I have tried everything. Polishing wheel, chrome/aluminum polish, hand polishing, I have even sanded from 120 all the way up to 4000 wet sand and it will not polish up. It’s just about a 3 foot section on the top lip. On either side of that section it polishes fine. I can wipe it down with acetone until it is completely clean on the rag, still a blackish color on the trim and as soon as I put polish on the rag and go over that area, it leaves black residue on the rag. The sections on either side of that area Leaves no black residue on the rag when I polish those. What am I doing wrong? Thanks. (Circled are the black areas, you can see it clean right next to those areas).
Tail panel trim polishing question
- Thread starter rjbsj
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I’ve never encountered anything like that. It just won’t develop a shine and reflection at all? Are you sure all the anodizing is removed? Seems like it would have to be if you put 120 grit on it. What compound have you tried with your buffing wheel?
100% positive all of the anodizing has been removed. Won’t really take a polish at all in these areas. I’ll be completely honest. I’m definitely not the best on a polishing wheel, the compound I was using is a brown colored compound labeled for aluminum. But I can’t even get any type of shine hand polishing that area even after 4000 grit.
looks irregular like damaged, too many surfaces makes it difficult to polish
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Interesting, complete tail panel resto is in my Bee restoration thread that's a sticky in Members restoration section.
Oh believe me, I have followed your thread extremely closely lol. Just applying the last couple of coats of argent for the brows today also. Can’t figure this area of the tail panel out though
OK, this comment is probably off base but from the picture it kind of looks like there is a fairly deep grove or recess running through that area. It appears that the outsides are polishing up but possibly the groove or recess area isn’t getting sanded out and the buffer pad is riding over it on the outside edges. Maybe the center recess needs to be sanded with sandpaper wrapped around a small piece of dowel or a short piece of pencil barrel. I’m expecting you to tell me that’s not the case but trying to help on the internet with pictures is sometimes kind of a guessing game.
You had me second guessing myself so I checked…. No grove but it would make sense. I flooded the area with “attack” and acetone on top of the sanding so there’s no way it could have survived that, but I did a fingernail check for a groove and it was smooth. Who knows.
That’s a mystery. About the only other guess I can make is that it was damaged in the past and someone aluminum welded it and re-anodized it. But I’m guessing there’s no sign of damage on the backside or before you started work on it. I’ve refinished a couple of aluminum tail panels and a lot of other aluminum trim and never encountered anything I couldn’t polish out. If Mothers won’t put some semblance of a shine on it even if still sand-scratched, I can’t think of anything else to try.
Just out of curiosity what did you use to strip the old anodizing off with?
Just out of curiosity what did you use to strip the old anodizing off with?
Acetone….numerous times. It actually leaves no residue on the cloth with acetone now. The acetone did great stripping the headlight bales and the tail panel. Also sanded it numerous times as mentioned above.
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