Shiney bits for the Kat project.

[Guest]

Well as I mentioned my favourite tool is the brass wire brush on a bench grinder. I have a couple, one in the man room and one on a 1/4 hp motor in the basement "tool room".

I've been polishing bike parts for several years now but always used hand tools and assorted cotton wheels and bobs.

Somewhere along the way in a discussion on polishing it was recommended that the best polishing tool is a bench grinder fitted with a sisal wheel. So I was thinking I should try it out sometime.

This week being slow at work (self employed and work from home...3 steps from "tool room) I decided I'd get some wheels and try them out on my 1/4 horse.

Definitely way faster but also way way messier. sisal hairs and compound everywhere.

I had a real grotty ATK brace I picked up and I figured I'd polish up the ends to my clip ons. About an hours work and well worth it I think:





The brace has a bit of surface pitting and some dinks on the clamps but a bit of sanding should sort them.

Just about everything else on the bike is painted so I was thinking I might have a go at the brake disks. I saw some done before , maybe on a thread here and they looked awesome. My disks are in pretty good shape so it may work. We'll see.

I wish I'd done this before would have saved a lot of time and effort.

Cheers,
Spyug

[Macguyver]

Those parts look nice and shiny!
Do you do windows?

Seriously, nice work Spyug, sisals do a nice job, but I agree with the mess everywhere. When I used one a lot I cut a couple 2 litre pop bottles in half lengthwise and riveted them together to make a shield around the back and top of the wheel, and duct taped a couple hoses to the pour spouts, them ducted those to the shop vac line.

Worked ok for sucking the fibres out of the air, but did nothing for the compound. I was told I looked like a spotted grease monkey after spending a couple hours cleaning up parts!

If I were to redo it, I would likely just make a holder for the shop vac line to position it close to the wheel where the majority of the fibres were flying off. Something to think about maybe.

Once again, great job on the parts! Makes me want to polish something.