Buffing a valve cover?

[Rubberman]

What does everyone use to buff up a valve cover? I used a drimel tool last night with the buffing pad and it didn't look as good as the ones I've seen on here. Does everyone sand it first? I used the small wire brush on it first to clean it up a bit, Only tried it in a few spots to see what it would look like. Shit would be the right term for the looks.

[jesusno2]

well i've polished lots of motorcycle cases before i have a big 2 hp buffer. first i glass beaded the part then went to town with black rouge and finished up with a white rouge on a special wheel. but you can wet sand for days and hand polish it too but that pretty labor intensive.

[Pacific coast Datsun]

Ive done a few this way. Wet sand them 1st with 600 grit & then follow with 1000 then use a buffing wheel in the drill motor with brown rouge then mothers polish. The more you sand it the better / shinier it'll look.

[Rubberman]

Thanks fellas. I'll see what I can do and put some pics up.

[BEEBANI]

I used a 6 inch buffing wheel (made for bench grinder) and put it on a 4-1/2" grinder with some rouge and had pretty good results.

[yellowdatsun]

First, keep in mind that buffing any factory cast aluminum product is going to take you *WAY* longer to do than you ever originally thought. Like not hours, but days in some cases. Like Pacifc Coast mentioned, you'll want to sand it first, and it'll take a LOT of sanding. Get it as smooth as possible before you ever take a buffing wheel to it. The problem with sanding factory cast objects is that there's imperfections in the aluminum, maybe tiny chunks of steel or whatever, and they get stuck to whatever your using to sand with, then leaving you with a nice scratch you now have to sand out again. One of the reasons it's not easy to do. On angle grinder can be used to take off large imperfections. Also as mentioned, use the rudge buffing compound, works pretty well. You can use either a buffer or a drill, but the drills tend to get pretty hot. I use just regular buffing wheels from any hardware store, but they have to have the stitching out to near the edge, or they'll just flap around. The buffing wheel needs to be pretty rigid.