I have been finishing the polishing of my 91 z28 wheels, and one
of the last things I have to do is polish the center caps. I wet sanded
them to 2000 grit paper and then used mothers aluminum polish.
I applied it with a terry cloth towel and buffed with another clean
towel. When looking at them from certain angles there are alot of
very fine scratches on the surface, and I am wondering if there is
anything I can do to get rid of them. Over all as you can see from
the pictures they are highly reflective and look good at any reasonable
distance. However, I would like to make them as smooth and good
as possible.

Good angle:

 

Another good one:

 

Scratches!!!!!!!! :

 

im not sure how to get those out, maybe a finer grit, but it would probably just make smaller scratches since its plastic...i was afraid of polishing my wheels because of the centercaps i didnt think they would match...how did you go about doing them?


chris

 

Almost has that brushed aluminum look to it. I don't think it looks too bad. Nice work!:hail:

 

did you only used the 2000 grit paper ?

seems to me like you used something else before this that scratched the surface (like a 800grit or something).

 

it doesnt look bad at all.. in the sun no one will even notice the scratches!! good job!!

 

Well, your next step is to hit it with steel wool. Progress through that and it should remove the fine scratches. Then use the polish again.

 

I actually went from 220, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, and
2000 like I did on the rest of the wheel. However, I made sure that
I took out all of the previous scratches each time. Even the 2000
grit paper leaves some fine scratches, and maybe that is what
these are.

CraZ-28 - What type of steel wool should I use. I don't think I will
do this now, but I probably will this winter.

Also, does anyone know what is the best kind of material to polish
and buff aluminum with. I have been using terry cloth towels, and
was wondering if even these are too rough.

 

well I've polished a few things , made some mistakes on the way and that sure looks like you used too harsh of a grit , in MY OPINION that 220 scratched it up and the others couldnt' remove all the deep scratches. just my opinion though

 

I've never polished those camaro wheels (I did do other style of wheels and plenty of TA wheels) , but after stripping I start off with 400grit paper (wetsanding only).

 

I know that the 220 grit will leave some deep scratches, but they
were smaller than the scratches that were already there when I
stripped off the clear. I don't see why the other grit papers would
not have been able to get them out anyways. I could understand
it if I went from 220 right to 1000, but I used every grit in between.
I figured that the 320 could remove the 220, the 400
would remove the 320 scratches and so on. This is my first time
polishing anything and I just want to know if my logic is way off.

 

Does wetsanding with 400 grit remove the cast marks? I would imagine that it would take forever, but I'm no expert.

 

MetalliCamaroRS - I know what you are saying. I wetsanded the
machining marks off with 220 grit and it took about 2 hours of
continuous sanding per rim. It was a really good work out , but if I tried
to do it with 400 grit I think my arm would have fell off .

 

To get the machined lines out of mine I drysanded with 180. Took about 20-30 mins but they all came out and my rims (the two that are done anyway) look fine.

 

I thought the centre caps were plastic?? Is there some alu. plate on em' that you can polish? I know I would like to do mine, so it will match the polished rims a little better. They look ok, but the centre is obviously a diff shade because of the plastic coating on the centre caps.

Before the rims:


Now:

 

sLaYeR - Yes there is a layer of aluminum on the center caps. If you
pull one off and look at the back along the edge you can see the
aluminum plate that is attached. The center "nut" and backing
is plastic however so be sure not to sand and rough that up.

 

Those scrathes are for good, and on plastic, forget about getting that out. Plastic should never have been sanded, you should have tried to wash them with some tough degreaser and soap instead. That's my 2 cents worth. Andy

 

1991Formula350 - Those scratches are on the aluminum sheet that
is around the center "nut". The surface there is aluminum and can
be polished. I've attached an image to help clarify

 

not bad looking from that last pic!!

because it is such a thin layer i would try some jewlers rouge or some sort of rough grit polish before i went with any more sanding..........lastly, i wouldn't waste my time with the mothers polish unless you can't possibly find anything else.

wizards metal polish works really well and you might even try a corse paint polish that you can pick up at a auto paint supply store........

mothers will only dull and fill in those scratches with compound making it even more noticeable........but, again if it's all you have to work with then it's understandable.

good luck; if all else fails chrome em!