MTFCA Forum

I recently bought a reproduction Fronty valve cover. The surface finish wasn’t smooth. I’d like an almost mirror finish for looks and clean-ability.
I sanded with 600 wet/dry paper and it’s much improved but wondering if there is a trick I’m missing.

Any tips are greatly appreciated.

Barry Loucks

You need to start with much coarser abrasive and work your way toward 600. I would start with a 120-180 grit flap wheel or a DA sander and work your way up to a sewn cloth wheel with imbedded abrasive. Or take it to a shop that specializes in metal polishing and have them do it.

Are we back?

Thanks Dan. I wrote a long response and found out the site was down.

What is a DA sander? I’ve had mixed results from “experts” who polished parts for me. I prefer to do it myself. I’m into it now for about 2 hours and I have a long way to go before I think it’s okay. I’ll try some of the coarser product too.

Barry

its just a orbital random sander like the ones used for body work- they use adhesive backed discs.
https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Ran ... 8345&psc=1

I have one of those. I’ll give it a try. One thing to be careful of is not grinding the raised letters off. I’ve had experts do that in the past. Anything near the letters has to be done by hand.

When ever sanding aluminum, use canning wax for putting up preserves will save your sandpaper and keeps your burrs from clogging up. I start off with about 100 grit, tapping my flapper wheel against the wax, depending on how rough the casting is as Dan suggest. Working down to 600 grit. Let your material cool down before polishing with jewelery’s rouge. Then proceed with White Diamond metal polish, sold at O’Reilly, using a ball style polish head in an electric drill will remove an unbelievable amount of squirl marks. Rinse with mineral spirits. Polish on occasions.

All the Best,

Hank in Tin-A-See

Just an example.
All the Best,

Hank

And another.
Hank

Yeah, that’s shiny enough.

Working on my head now, I did the intake a while back. Using a random orbit I start with 60 and work up to 400. From there I go to the bench grinder and compound.

Really nice. It’s gotta be tough to get a consistent finish on all those fins. What I found was even with hand sanding on unobstructed areas I made decent progress in a reasonable time. It’s the letters and the recessed areas for clearance to head bolts that aren’t going to shine up with a power tool without risking damage to the sharpness of those features. I’ll post a photo when I get further along.
Going to play hockey in a few minutes.