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heckhole
04-01-2016, 07:14 PM
I have an entire fleet of Freightliner rigs to polish wheels to a mirror finish.

I've polished my own aluminum wheels, but it including stripping the clear, etc.

I've never had my hands on raw aluminum from the start. A "professional" already "polished" the wheels on the fleet and was promptly fired.

I offered the first rig at a low price, with an inspection, to continue on to the rest of the fleet, where the owner was informed my price would double.

My plan of attack is:

Determine the depth of the scratches the previous professional put in the aluminum and work from that.

In a perfect world I would start with 600/800 wet, and work my way up to 1500/2000 wet before I use my cone and wheel polish (I've had the best results using paint compounds and polishes vs OTC wheel polish).

But I thinking of getting one of the aluminum buffing wheels for my rotary and some jeweling rouge. Like I said, I will have an entire fleet of Trucks, and soon enough the entire trailer fleet.

heckhole
04-04-2016, 01:07 AM
No responses, but I've done plenty of research and the techniques used for big rigs seems simple. Angle grinder or rotary with aluminum polishing wheels with various grade bars seems to be the best mirror shine with efficiency.

mtnbiker
05-13-2016, 08:01 PM
I'M doing the same thing with my wheels. I began by hand, 400, 800, 1500 grit but Taki g to long. I tried an angle grinder with a scotch brite disc. This method is fast. I just bought some cotton and wool polishing discs last night with the compound sticks and will let you know how that works out. I will be using a die grinder for the speed.

Riff
05-13-2016, 08:16 PM
https://youtu.be/cwXtxmVZOPk

I've never done it but I found this guy's videos very informative.