On 08/02/2011 01:26 PM, Chris Whelan wrote:
On Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:03:22 +0100, john thompson wrote:

Have a fifty year old or so aluminium lamp housing that has been sprayed
black. The black paint is bubbling off in places and we wish to restore
it to a nice aluminium finish. Not neccesarily a shiny finish, a matt
one would be just fine; and probably easier.

Using wet and dry carborundum paper is going to be quite a big job to
get it looking good, especially around the detailed parts of it.

Is it possible to buy a small fairly inexpensive 'sand blaster' that
would do the job? Or even some kind of paint stripper, either of which
would not damage the aluminium surface?

Grateful for advice on how you might tackle this job.

Not sure how this relates to uk.rec.cars.maintenance...

Chris


well, polishing aluminum is something that many auto enthusiasts are
familiar with...

sand blasting will not result in a polished finish. neither will
abrasives, although using a scotchbrite pad will result in an attractive
brushed finish.

For polishing, nothing beats power tools, but if there's any corrosion
that will need to be sanded smooth first. I've had good luck with Wenol
polish. Once upon a time I sanded smooth and polished two old Ansen
Sprint mags with Wenol... by hand... (because I had two polished and two
machined) they looked (still do) great but I'll never do that again.

nate

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