Bead blasting disks, anybody done this?

[Guest]

I want to clean up my 2 front disks and the 1 rear over the winter. Somebody told me that "bead blasting" the disks would clean them up real nice. Anybody ever do this?

[first timer]

we can just take my angle grinder with a course wire brush atachment to them, i did it to my disks on my 1k and they look real good and stop real good too.

-ryan

[Ghostgs1]

Used a 3M product, though I don't remember the numbers. Installed on ange grinder it did a real nice job on mine. I believe the bead blasting would work well but the surface would appear dull when finished.

[duaneage]

I used an orbital sander with 100 grit paper

[DaveDanger]

Bead blasting can do a wonderful job, and can cause problems as well. Bead blasting is typically done with one of two different media... sand or glass. Sandblasting is best left to cleaning surfaces that aren't machine finished. It can leave a very coarse surface, and can actually remove base material in a manner that leaves for instance a disk, with thick and thin spots. Glass-bead blasting does a super job and will not remove anything but dirt, crud, and rust or corrosion from even fairly soft materials... aluminum, magnesium, etc. Either media leaves what appears to be a satin finish to the eye. Not a bad look, and the use of the brakes will return the disks to their polished appearance pretty quickly. To me, it's worth the time to locate a shop that has a glass bead machine to use. On the other hand, if you have some actual roughness on the disks, I think it'd be worthwhile to locate a machine shop and inquire as to the cost of having the disks surfaced. Doesn't necessarily have to be a motorcycle shop. Any machine shop has the equipment to surface any type of machine finished part.