Read a good tip on another forum and thought I would pass it on. The trick is to use welders pickling paste. It's an acid in a gel like form that is painted on stainless steel welds to clean them after welding. Wearing gloves, paint the whole of the piece to be cleaned with a thick coat making sure you get lots in the joins and welds. Clean yourself and brush and relax for 45 minutes. Gloves back on and wash the gel off with a scouring pad and running water. You may have to scrub a bit along the welds and spring loops but nothing too strenuous. Repeat this procedure until you are happy with the result. My pipes were really bad so I had to do 3 coats. I got it on the cf mufflers but it didn't hurt them. They come up in a nice satin finish which I imagine will change to that nice bronze that I like on these bikes. Works for me
looks great. found this on ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Weldline-Pickling-Paste-Picklinox-P2-2Kg-/161062823439?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash= what about afterward tho, does it need any furher protection? if you read the ebay company stuff they sell a final passivation coating?
The way I understand it Passivation is just a faster chemical way of doing what the air will do over time i.e. make the surface corrosion resistant, anyway. I've never done it on any of the stainless welds on my boat and have never had a discolouration issue from corrosion.
How then could you bring them up to a shine ? I have a spare set of down pipe and really want to get them shiny
I have used autosol and its good but not great..... is the welders "pickling paste" ok to use ? Looks fairly abbrasive ?
Well it brings it up to a satin finish has been said but does it make it so you can't take it from that to polished shiny metal?
The oven cleaning bags that you put trays in etc in are superb for cleaning exhaust parts, bring them up like brand new.
It should to Mel, but the only way to get a shiny finish is lots of elbow grease. The chemical process removes the brown tranish, but then you would need to use a polishing wheel, and/or lots of tedium hand polishing. I use a buffing wheel on an adaptor on my bench grinder, which makes a very nice job of it. Probably takes about half an hour to do. However, if you use a polishing wheel on a bench grinder, you don't need to use a chemical pickling process, because the polishing wheel takes off all the tarnish anyway.
This stuff, you get it in Supermarkets etc, about 4 quid a pop, its just some big thick plastic bags with Chemical cleaner inside, put Zorst bits in and hey presto !!
Spinning mops and abrasive soaps are what I use, shiny shiny is the result, Ive use it all before but end of the day this is the oldest and best method at mirror finishing. http://www.myalbum.co.uk/GroteFoto-FBSYT4XQ.jpg I hate this site and posting images with the iPad3! Large res images are a nightmare!
Wow, those pipes look great. The questions are: > how long do they stay shiny? > how easy is it to keep them shiny once they have been fitted back on the bike? > is there anything that can be done to stop them oxidising again (is passivation much good)? Sorry for so many questions but I'd not be happy to go to the effort of getting that lovely finish only to watch it fade too quickly
Once polished (a day and a bit) they stay shiny just simple washing and a wipe over keeps them like this, the joy of stainless is once polished its easy to look after, they do blue a little but again stay clean most of mine get a whip over say once in 5 years! Real bad system back to mirror. http://www.myalbum.co.uk/GroteFoto-DO8JSKUN.jpg 160 grit poly sander discs torn to shreds ended up at 2000 then to the mops. Satin http://www.myalbum.co.uk/GroteFoto-KJTAMABP.jpg Nearly anything can be restored http://www.myalbum.co.uk/GroteFoto-FBLJWJQC.jpg http://www.myalbum.co.uk/GroteFoto-WQMGQDZJ.jpg Some random polishing http://www.myalbum.co.uk/GroteFoto-NGR83TLA.jpg http://www.myalbum.co.uk/GroteFoto-FBSYT4XQ.jpg http://www.myalbum.co.uk/GroteFoto-B8LJBLRM.jpg http://www.myalbum.co.uk/GroteFoto-6GD8ZJSS.jpg For polishing kits and info check out Polishing Kits | Polishing Mops | Polishing Shop | Polishing Kit
Took me about an hour and a half to do my pipes a couple of years back using a mop and compound on an electric drill. Very easy quite quick and relatively cheap to do.
Not quite, mostly in the living room where a lot of my work gets done and where several of my bikes live when not in use.
I used a polishing wheel on my drill and the polishing bar of stuff that comes with it, took about 10 hours in all, and looks really good when its done. See the pictures below.
Just about to go get this... http://m.screwfix.com/p/metal-polishing-kit-100mm/75331?filtered=true Looks alright, last time I tried pipe polishing I bought a dremel....suffice to stay it's not really appropriate unless you like long bouts of incredible tedium! Anyone had an experience with that kit?
