The day has come!

[PatBuckley]

....only until the painter started shooting the color coat!

[David Kirkham]

Originally Posted by PatBuckley

....only until the painter started shooting the color coat!

It was actually Pat Buckley's car that pushed us over the edge to start polishing cars. He sanded his car in a very fine grit (I think 400, Pat can chime in here) and it looked so killer we had to try it ourselves. Pat really did a nice job on his car. It was the nicest Kirkham we had ever seen. At the time we were only sanding our cars to 120 grit. Our customers have always done really nice things over the years to their rides. Many of those "upgrades" and custom ideas we have later started to do ourselves.

After sanding to 400, one of our guys wanted to polish the stripes...then, well, polishing the whole car wasn't far behind.

big-boss, do whatever you want. I personally think the polished car is much easier to take care of than the brushed car.

David

[Dwight]

I vote PAINT


Dwight

[PatBuckley]

Originally Posted by David Kirkham

It was actually Pat Buckley's car that pushed us over the edge to start polishing cars. He sanded his car in a very fine grit (I think 400, Pat can chime in here) and it looked so killer we had to try it ourselves. Pat really did a nice job on his car. It was the nicest Kirkham we had ever seen. At the time we were only sanding our cars to 120 grit. Our customers have always done really nice things over the years to their rides. Many of those "upgrades" and custom ideas we have later started to do ourselves.

After sanding to 400, one of our guys wanted to polish the stripes...then, well, polishing the whole car wasn't far behind.

big-boss, do whatever you want. I personally think the polished car is much easier to take care of than the brushed car.

David

Thanks for the compliment, David.

I actually went down to 1500 grit paper before polishing.

My only issue with leaving the car au naturel is that as soon as you are done with your polish or sanding job the aluminum starts to oxidize - and you really can't just clean up one area (well I suppose you could but IMO it then looks really bad) you have to do the entire car! About every three or four months. There are other things I would rather do.

I have heard of some products that preserve the shine (Zoopseal?) but I never tried them.

I even purchased a gallon of Alodine 1001 from Wicks Aircraft Supply allegedly they use the stuff on planes to keep them shiny but I never tried it. I heard it was really really nasty stuff and that I should not go near it so it is sitting in a cupboard with a big warning sign on it not to drink it.

The reason I nver tried any of these products is because I could just see them totally ruining my lovely aluminum that I had spent thousands of hours on!

[Ronbo]

Originally Posted by PatBuckley

Thanks for the compliment, David.

I actually went down to 1500 grit paper before polishing.

My only issue with leaving the car au naturel is that as soon as you are done with your polish or sanding job the aluminum starts to oxidize - and you really can't just clean up one area (well I suppose you could but IMO it then looks really bad) you have to do the entire car! About every three or four months. There are other things I would rather do.

I have heard of some products that preserve the shine (Zoopseal?) but I never tried them.

I even purchased a gallon of Alodine 1001 from Wicks Aircraft Supply allegedly they use the stuff on planes to keep them shiny but I never tried it. I heard it was really really nasty stuff and that I should not go near it so it is sitting in a cupboard with a big warning sign on it not to drink it.

The reason I nver tried any of these products is because I could just see them totally ruining my lovely aluminum that I had spent thousands of hours on!

Get a sheet of aluminum to test them on...

Someone posted a clear coated, brushed finished car here a while back, looked awsome!