70 Chevelle polishing question

[dkar26]

Hi All,

What’s the best way/product to polish the bright work on a 70 Chevelle for an “intermediately” skilled weekend detailer?

Just got this baby in December and now it’s gonna be sitting all winter waiting to get paint corrected in the spring.



Thanks!


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[hoyt66]

Sweet car! Look forward to more pics of it

[dkar26]

Bump


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[TMQ]

For bright work or chrome, go with Mother's chrome polish.

[2black1s]

I used to restore many 60s/70s GM products... When you say "bright work" I'm assuming that your talking about window reveal moldings, wheel opening moldings, rocker panel moldings and the like. Most of these are stainless but I've also found some to be chrome plated aluminum.

For the chrome plated pieces (most likely on rocker panel moldings) you are pretty much SOL.

For the stainless pieces the best method is to remove them from the car and polish them on a buffer wheel. Otherwise you could just experiment with metal polishes by hand or machine with the trim pieces in place (mask the painted areas in proximity to the trim).

[damaged442]

Great looking Chevelle!

I have a 1973 Olds 442, a 1977 Olds Cutlass Supreme and a 1987 Olds 442. There is quite a bit to polish on these cars and I have had good luck with Blue Magic Metal Polish or more recently, Collinite Metal Wax. Both do a pretty decent job of cleaning up and protecting. Good luck and have fun!

[Mike Phillips]

I buff out a lot of cars with chrome and stainless steel. I also bring cars like this into our classes and then teach others how to buff out chrome and stainless steel.

For chrome, if it has scratches there's nothing you can do to actually "remove" the scratches because the layer of chrome is super thin and removing scratches means abrading the material to "level" the surface to the lowest level of the defects/scratches you're trying to remove.

With stainless steel you can in fact abrade it but the rouges and tools for this are specific to this type of work but most chrome, aluminum or generic metal polishes will "shine-up" stainless. (there's a difference between removing scratches out of stainless steel and making the scratches shiny).


When I buff out cars with chrome my normal procedure is the lazy man's method and that is WHATEVER I'm using for the first step, be it a compound, polish or cleaner/wax, I buff out the chrome and stainless after I've buffed out all the paint with the first step product and whatever pad I'm using is already tatty and/or wet with the product I'm using.


Here's an example, it's a 1970 Chevelle with your paint scheme. After buffing out the paint and the class with the BLACKFIRE One Step I used the remaining pad on my FLEX 3401 and buzzed over all the trim around the windows and the bumpers.

Boom --> Done. Looks great.


Review: BLACKFIRE One-Step Cleaner/Wax by Mike Phillips

So all the bumpers and trim around the windows were buffed with a one-step cleaner/wax and a foam pad.





Even buzzed the pad around the stainless fender lip trim...