Hey all. I've started work on restoring my old Hercules, and like most old bikes it needs some polishing. Gotta remove all that dust, rust and bad stuff that's gathered on it.

What products/mixtures do you reccomend for doing such? Especially for delicate areas that are painted, as well as the rims.

Thanks for any help! Pictures once I've got it all polished up and photo worthy!

I'm going to do my best imitation of The Graduate:

"Oxalic acid, my boy. Oxalic acid"

That will get the rust off. There should be a few threads on the subject.

East Hill

Flitz for the metal bits.

Real basic. First, soap and water for everything, then a car type cleaner/wax for everything thats painted.

For the rims/chrome/metal parts, BRASS (not steel) wool lubricated with WD40 (or light oil or kerosene or deisel).

Thanks for the tips everyone. Appreciate it.

There should be a sticky with restoration tips & techniques. Searching through such a large forum gives me a headache!

You don't need to search through the forum--just head to the Northern California regional forum, and plaintively ask:

"Is there anyone in the Bay Area who can help me with this?"

You are surrounded by C & V members who love this kind of stuff .

East Hill

I'm so new I hadn't even bothered looking for a regional forum. D'oh!

Lately I've been reaching for the "GooGone" quite a bit. I also like "NevRDull," it's a wadding-style metal polisher, but in addition to obvious applications like rims and chrome, it is suprisingly gentle on painted surfaces, and can remove really stubborn grime spots that resist other methods. (Also, count me as another vote for WD-40, some people forget its cleaning abilities.)

I like to do the least amount of work to get the bike functional first before I put a lot of work into it. That way I can check for things like a bent frame or fork before spending a lot of time and money cleaning, painting and lubing everything. Once I know the bike is going to work, I make a list of the things that I want to do and parts that I need.
If you are going to paint, make sure you let it cure for several days so you don't scratch it the first time you go to mount components.

For polish I usually use Mothers Aluminum and Mag polish found in the automotive section. Makes short work of dulled hubs and seatposts as I discovered yet again this evening when playing with my new parts.

SOS pads on rusted rims does wonders

Yeah that's pretty much what I'm going to do. The first thing I did was install new tires onto her, and lubed her up. Took her for a ride, figured out [for the time being] what was most important to focus on. AKA, second gear not working, new brakes, fix the headlight & rear light.

At this point I don't think I'll paint. But I would love to locate [or have produced] some decals. The ones currently on there are suffering.

Problem with SOS is that it is steel, and can actually promote rust beause little bits of steel can get into the pits and scrathes and then rust. This is from what I have read, no personal knowledge, but I've used brass wool, which works great and since brass is softer than steel, there is less chance of scratching.

SOS pad for chrome followed by a complete washing with hot soap and water, wipe down completely and spray with WD 40 unless you are going to polish the chrome. Oh yeah if you have an air compressor blow em off after the hot soap and water routine. Never had a problem yet with this routine. YRMV but I love WD 40 or LPS or the like because it displaces water. If there is any pitting then the chrome is gone and there has to be something to protect the bare steel that remains thats why the polish is so important to protect the surface. I have never used the brass wool but I might try it. I like the SOS cause its got soap in it which give a bit of lubrication to the whole process and I'm lazy. Thanks for the hot tip on the brass wool