Hey All,

I've never really had any metalwork experiance and im just curious as to how youd go about polishing aluminium. Basically I want to take my plenum / intake manifold off to raplace my rear plugs and thought while its off I would polish it or have it chromed.

Is it just a matter of getting the wet and dry and and sanding it back, stepping down the grades of papers until i get the desired finish? Even if i go to a very fine paper won't it still be rough?

Im after a near mirror finish so would it just be better to sand it down and get it smooth then have it chromed. Does anyone have any idea's how much it costs to have parts chromed approximately?

Got some mental idea's for my engine bay :thumbsup:

you use polishing wheels,which r made of cloth.It can take time.U could d.i.y but it would never be as good as chrome.

Anyone got any rough idea's how much id be up for to have the intake manifold chromed?

Anyone got any rough idea's how much id be up for to have the intake manifold chromed?
No idea on price, but I think u'd still have to smooth the surface RIGHT out, cause I doubt the chrome will FILL your surface.. I'd say it'd prolly be a waste of $$ unless u are willing to do that urself.

Id be happy to do the smoothing, no probs there. Will look into it.

Polished aluminium can look pretty damn close to chrome. A lot of the "chrome" intake plenums you'll see on the diamante site are actually just polished aluminium. If you take the time to get it perfectly smooth and polish it a ****load then you can do it.

Autosol is a decent polish. There are better out there though, not that I can think of any off hand lol

You'll still have to sand it smooth before you chrome AFAIK

is there paint for a tacky job ?

i remember making a key-ring from acrillic at school. to get the sides nice and smooth we clamped it in a vise and spent the whole term slowly working down thru the diff grades of sand paper (both wet and dry... used brasso on it) then we even used diff types of materials (like cloth materials) to get even smoother. It took all term but DAMn is that baby smooth.

Tim

chroming = $$$$$

unless ur selling drugs dont even bother go asking...a waste of $

Take a look at my bling job, DIY polishing job...

Oh so shiny (http://www.aussiemagna.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7148)

Looks good mate but how exactly did you do it, im new to metalwork...

With two bench grinders, a few different grade sandig belts, a scotch-brite belt, a prep polishing wheel and the polishing wheel itself. About $400-$500 worth of equipment to do the job, but its for our golf club business, we use it to buff up and refurbish golf clubs, but I get bored and use it to make other things smooth and shiny to :D .