How do I bring an old grille back to life?

[Daddys409Belair]

If there's an old thread for this, someone please let me know.....

My grille on my 61 Bel Air has a tarnished/cloudy appearance and I'm trying to rejuvenate it. Any ideas? I've already tried Brasso, Brasso silverware cleaner, Mother's aluminum polish and even an acid based aluminum mag wheel cleaner.

I took one of my old headlite bezels to a plating shop and the fellow there dipped it in some material and then polished up with Brasso and it looked spectacular! He wants a couple of hundred just to polish them up!! I kind of hoped that someone here would have a more affordable solution, or that has run into this before.

Thanks in advance.:cheers

[bobs409]

You need to strip the anodizing, then you can polish it out to a mirror finish.

I bought some powder that gets mixed in warm water. Soak parts for about 15 minutes and it fizzes all the anodizing off.

I did the grill for my 66 Impala using this method (and all the other moldings both in/out)

See this thread for more info on this and where I got it from:
http://www.348-409.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3547&highlight=anodizing

[mpris]

Bob, did you ever put anything on your aluminum after you polished it. I have stripped all of my aluminum for my 64ss and polished it. It looks like chrome, however I wonder how long it will stay that way without anodizing. I thought about Zoops, but it sure is a lot of work for no longer than it lasts. I wonder if you could just get by with a good polish like the Blue Winol a couple times a year?

Poocho

[bobs409]

Mine still looks good after about 9 months and the car sits outside. I went over the exterior pieces with Never dull a few months ago and I did wax them when I did the rest of the car.

I think an occasional polish would do the trick but I'm still in the "testing" stages myself. :D

[Daddys409Belair]

Many Thanks Bob! I ordered 3 bottles this afternoon! I'll let you know how it turned out.:brow

[models916]

Its just sodium hydroxide aka LYE. Buy it at any grocery store as red devil lye about $4.00 for a big can. Mix it with water and soak the part for couple of minutes and then buff. I remember paying $18 at a swap untill an anodizing place down the street from where I work told me to use lye.

[Tom Kochtanek]

I have tried the oven cleaner approach, lye (Drano), and the stuff Bob recommends. They all have NaOH or sodium hydroxide in them to one extent or another. They all work, but that stuff Bob recommended worked the fastest.

After you strip the anodized surface, you then need to polish the heck out of the piece. Depending on whether you have dings and dents (which can be tapped out, but don't use a metal device, use a thin wedge of hardwood, like oak) you can work the surface to remove the large scratches using wet sandpaper. I started with 80 grit to get some deeper imperfections out on my grill piece. Then i went to 120, then moved up the scale of finer grits until about 800 or 1000. With the headlight bezels, which were in better shape, I started out with 120 grit.

It starts looking better each time you change to a new finer grit. I did this by hand, but that is really tedious. After sanding smooth, it still doesn't shine very much. On to the buffing wheel, starting with a coarser polish and moving to finer and finer grades until you hit the "jewer's rouge" phase. Things really begin to shine here.

But think about it, you've gone maybe 5-6 stages of wet sanding, maybe three stages of buffing, just to get there. It's hours of work. After you are done you have shiny unprotected aluminum surface. To seal it I tried Zoop Seal, which is easy to do and supposedly fills the tiny pores in the metal, protecting the the surface and the shine. Instructions say you can apply this again in a year or two, but I haven't got that far as yet. I'm just now getting the parts back on the car.

I bet I have 10-15 hours alone into my 1962 grill, which really looked bad when I started. It looks better, but not great. And it may not last very long. A new grill costs maybe $500?? so I often wonder if its worth my time (at $.37 per hour :)). I do get a bit of satisfaction from saying "I did it" and "you should have seen it when I started", but there is some practicality in being able to write a check out for the piece and expecting it to be perfect, and to last a long time. I wish i could figure out how to anodize a piece, but then everyone would be doing it and it wouldn't cost so much...

I'd be interested in what others have done. I much prefer polishing stainless over anodized aluminum :). Quick and easy!

Cheers,
TomK

[Impalaguru]

I didn't find the product at the like Bob posted. Am I missing something:dunno
Ross

[bobs409]

Ross,

This link will take you to it: http://www.villagebuffing.com/compound.htm

It's the only one on the list that is $12.00


Bob

I didn't find the product at the like Bob posted. Am I missing something:dunno
Ross

[bobs409]

I often wondered what was in this stuff. I'll have to try the LYE method sometime.

Thanks, :)


Bob

Its just sodium hydroxide aka LYE. Buy it at any grocery store as red devil lye about $4.00 for a big can. Mix it with water and soak the part for couple of minutes and then buff. I remember paying $18 at a swap untill an anodizing place down the street from where I work told me to use lye.

[models916]

Oven cleaner only has a little bit of sodium hydroxide in it. Takes a lot of repeats to do the job for a lot of money. LYE from the grocery store in crystal form is pure 100%. I use one 6 oz can to 5 gallons of water in a bucket. Soak for 5 minutes and all the surface anodizing is removed. That's the easy part, putting the shine back is dirty, hard work. What other choice do we have to shine the original finish without spending the family pension?

[models916]

To strip my 62 grille, I built a wooden box out of 2x4s and plywood to match the dimentions of the grille and lined it with landscape plastic. filled it with the lye/water mix and dunked the grille for 5 minutes. I used ever increasing finer grades of steel wool to buff it out. I think the last one was #0000.

[bobs409]

Yep, I did about the same thing to do my grill. Because of it's V shape and size, it's a bit tricky but I made a plywood box that half of the grill would lay in, then lined it with plastic and filled it with the liquid. Do one side, then the other. (with a fresh batch for the second side)

Trim that has no stone chips, scratches or dents can be polished out with Never dull real quickly. Trim that needs work....that's a whole different day! :mad: Stone chips are the WORST!

I use 600 wetsand and work my way up to about 1200. Then part goes to the buffer. Not my favorite thing to do, it's boring as all heck. :D

[dq409]

You can get 100% lye (sodium hydroxide) in a paste form at some house paint stores.
It`s called "Peel Away" and works great !! Used it on all my interior woodwork in my last home.
It would take multiple layers of 85 yearold paint down to the clean wood in one application !!!,,,dq

[Tic's60]

Great artical! Just what I have thinking of doing this winter. There's a 5 gal bucket of Peel Away Item number: 7571599760 on Ebay:) There is also some LYE there are well. Bet this will make the sink white again

[Tom Kochtanek]

Just a word to the wise: wear gloves and goggles when mixing, pouring, or handling these lye-based solutions. That stuff can be nasty on the skin and you DO NOT want to get anywhere near the eyes! Those thin elastic surgical gloves seems to work OK, but do protect your eyes, and anyone around you.

Sodium Hydroxide is a strong alkaline, a base (as opposed to an acid) which can be corrosive to the touch. I bet those that have come in contact with it can recall the "slippery fingers" it leaves you with...

Good luck!

TomK

[dq409]

Great artical! Just what I have thinking of doing this winter. There's a 5 gal bucket of Peel Away Item number: 7571599760 on Ebay:) There is also some LYE there are well. Bet this will make the sink white again


Boy,,, I don`t remember paying that much for a 5 gal bucket !!!
I`d call around to your local paint store before shelling out too much money,,,

Also, there are several Peel Aways,,, As in # 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 !!
#1 should be all you need as #7 is for stripping paint of wood where you want to use a stain/varnish final finish.
Check this link:
http://www.dumondchemicals.com/paint_remover.htm

AND do wear gloves and protective clothing.
I still have a few burn scars on my arms where I got some of it inside my gloves!!
Eats a really nice hole in your skin !!!
I went through several 5 gal pals and mulitiple 1 gal pals,,,,
Make sure you cover the product and parts with plastic to slow down the drying time. The Peel Away will dry to a paste that can be removed with a plastic puddy knife then water washed,,, Good luck ,,dq