Here's a picture of one strip done. It's the one with the red glare on it. I haven't polished it though . Just finished sanding it with 2000 grit. The strip to the left of it has only been sanded with 400 grit.

 

looks good..looks like you have a long way to go but it will be well worth it

 

I just finished painting 1 rim. And I used a little bit of Mothers aluminum polish in a small spot. I think they look pretty darn good.

 

heck yaeh!nice!
I just used some mothers on my rims and they look much better than b4.Thats just a quick job to without a filtsk or mothers ball.
"theres no shine like mothers"lol

 

Looks good, how long did it take you.

 

You will get a better shine if you don't go that high of a grit with your sandpaper. Just shareing their your rims do them how you want. The sticky on the top of this page is very informative.

BTW they still look good.

 

I was reading some of that stuff earlier. Don't you need to use a buffing wheel etc if you stop at a lower grit? I stipped, wet sanded 320/400/800/1000/1500/2000 grits, and lastly polished with mothers aluminum polish. I dunno, I'm by no means a polishing master, I just wanted them to look better than before.

I think I'm about ready to die though. I want them back on my car right now! Gotta finish the other 3 first. My one of my old Z28 rims/tires have a nail in them now too. Plus I'm gonna throw on some good 'ole Sportlines too. I'll get some pictures with everything back together.

 

Well first of all the way you did it looks 1,000X better than how they where.
To answer your question yes you would need a buffer of some sort. A drill (better if it has a cord, battaries don't last long doing this) will work. Go to eastwood and order a kit online. It will come with pads and compounds. If your in a hurry and cant wait for it to ship (like you apear to be) SEARS sells a kit. My dad just picked one up for his alum. rims he said it only cost like 12 or 13 dollars.

Like I said the rims look better than before but I think you would get better results with this method.

Good luck and Good day.

jojo22

 

They sure look way better than before and that method is great for making them look very good. However, using the compounds and buffing pads actually takes less time and has better results. Here is a good example. I polished the fuel rails on my LT1 intake to show the difference. The rail towards the top of the picture was polished with the good ol' 180/220/320/400/400 wet/600/800/1000/1500/2000/2000 wet/ Mothers method. The lower one was polished with the compounds and pads by hand. Yes, by hand. I didn't use a drill at all. You can see the one on the bottom has a much deeper shine.

Either way, your rim looks good. I've been saying I'm going to redo and paint mine for over a year now and I still haven't gotten around to it

 

Yea man I know the feeling, I've been procrastinating it like no other. Once the new paint is on in a month i won't have a choice though.

 

Oh man, I've got a power drill, I had just thought all the pads were gonna run me alot of money. Guess not though. I think I'm just gonna finish them off the way they are and do them some other time. I'm loosing intrest in sanding. I just want them damn things on the car.

 

I know that we all have different methods to acheive our "best" results, but here's what I've found to work. 1000 grit wet, then Mother's billet polish. I used to use some other polish, but you guys have changed my mind, and now I use MOTHERS!

...I used the wetsand to 800, then use all the polishing compounds method, and it really did work, but I've decided it's too much work for only a few weeks of good looking polished metal. My friends can't tell the difference. I can tell a litte, but I know where to look. All in all, you can hardly tell. The only difference that I can see is that the white rouge hides some imperfections. The vast majority of "good" metal looks just like a mirror.

I plan to try Zoop Seal this summer, and I'm gonna use the compounds, but for now, 1000 wet/Mother's billet!

 

I've heard great things about the new mothers ball also.