Polishing crank
 

What is a good compound for polishing cranks.

Thanks.

you're setting yourself up for some interesting responses!

Okay. Very good advice. Other than bodily fluids, what is a good compound, composed of synthetically derived ingredients, that will get scratches and the sort off of cranks?

This doesn't answer your question but a guy who sits a few cubes away from me had some road rash polished (including some pretty deep scratches) out of a derailleur by a jeweller. Damn nice job too... unless you have a desire to do it yourself it might be worth getting a quote.

Toothpaste works well for polishing alloyed components.

Sorry, I shouldn't have been such a wiseass and just answered your question. I've used a product called Noxon and it works great. I don't know where you are, but it's available in hardware stores in the states.

That's okay. Thanks for the humor and for putting me on notice. Coincidentally, I thought the same thing as soon as I posted my question.

Thank you all for your responses.

Got a bench grinder? Put on a buffing wheel and get some buffing compound. I bought a "kit" of 4 different compound grades (emery cake, tripoli, white rouge, and red rouge). Found it at the local home center. Start with the finest compound that'll remove your scratches and work your way down to the finest. Your cranks will look better than new. Once you start, you can't stop.

hmm taking my rear deraileur to a jewller might be a good idea...how much did it cost by chance?

Mine has some pretty rough scraping at the botom edge of the outer plate of the parralellogram housing. Goes about 1/5 of the way up.

When I was a detailer we used to restore wheels with a fine auto polish (I forget exactly what grade/level, but I believe it was a finer polish), and then some 00000 steel wool. That would do the initial work, take out a lot of some of the deeper scratches, and then we had a foam pad for our buffer we would use with the metal polish to do the final polish of the wheel. BRILLIANT results. I had a guy with a Mercedes tip me $50 just on how much he liked the wheels after I was done.

Simichrome doea a great job. Excellent stuff.

i dunno if automotive touchup is applicable in this case, but you may want to try some 3M Rubbing Compound :)

melloboy

I'll try to remember to ask him on Monday. :)

K-Y jelly

SOMEBODY had to say it. You guys are getting slack.

Mothers polishing compound works great. Get it at an auto parts store. Usually used for Mag wheels, you don't need to apply pressure just rub.