Originally Posted by
big chainring
All this polishing! But I do it too. Mothers brand aluminum polish. Also use the Turtle Wax chrome polish on chrome bits. And my ace in the hole for cleaning and degreasing, "Challenger" cleaner. Cuts thru crud faster than anything else including solvent based products.
One of the ways to identify a good bike back in the day, was if the components didnt shine. You knew a bike was of decent quality because it didn't have chromed steel parts. And Campy had the satin anodized finish. Shiny parts meant cheap bike!
Yep. All that polishing. Some bikes' chromed aluminum was junk, like this crank:
So then it's scrape, file, sand course, sand fine, sand superfine, steelwool course, steelwool fine, steelwool superfine with wd-40, metal polish, then wadding cloth, then wipe down, you get to this:
