brushing aluminum car

[Ray1960]

Hi, a lot of good ideas here, make sure you are capable or you no some one that has Tig machine, once filing the jointed area's if its to low you may have to build it up, so you don't file down the aluminum around the area, I would get a piece of aluminum 2 ft , have some one weld a joint on it, file it down, then use multiple different grits of wet sand paper or scotch pads, to get the finish you desire. You will go thru many doing this process, but you will be able to do this. A little trick I use is a little dove soap in your bucket, it keeps every thing clean and reduces build up on your pads. don't be in a hurry, its going to take some time.Good luck.

[427SSSS]

First off Welcome to the Club!
Second, kudos for considering doing it!
Best of luck if you do it.

Fact is, I have an "extra" body, and was thinking about painting it with: http://www.luminore.com/ and then attempting to brush it.

[eschaider]

Originally Posted by Ray1960

Hi, a lot of good ideas here, make sure you are capable or you no some one that has Tig machine, once filing the jointed area's if its to low you may have to build it up...

While TIG welding I believe (but don't know) would work, the body aluminum is not TIG welded by Kirkham. The body sections are gas welded which is a somewhat specialized skill for aluminum.

This thread is displaying the kind of experimental tinkering with a not well understood process that is difficult to do correctly w/o proper mentoring and guidance the first (and probably second and subsequent) times. What's even more disconcerting is that the experimentation is being done on a $160K car (possibly more expensive).

To the OP who started the thread, why not grab a fist full of $100 bills soak them in gas and set fire to them to see if you can put them out quickly enough to just produce the correct golden patina you would like to have on each one? That's how foolish hand finishing an aluminum Kirkham body is — when you've never done it before and do not have a mentor near at hand to prevent you from screwing up.

I presume you work hard for your money like most of us do. Why would you want to toss potentially significant amounts of it to the wind on a lark? Kirkham charges $15K to finish the body. That is not because they are trying to rob you it is because it is that work intensive! There is a hidden message here that is attached directly to your checking account / charge card.

Pay attention, it is worth more than the $15K that Kirkham charges to finish the car correctly. Once the car gets screwed up badly enough to require welding on the body (arghhh) you have entered a whole new phase of expense. Now Kirkham has to repair the previously printine aluminum body work and then get to the $!5K body finishing labor.

This kind of a decision is not rocket science, it is in fact pretty simple stuff ...


Ed