Hub polishing
 

I searched around a bit and found some pieces here and there but I thought it would be a good idea for it to have its own thread.

What are your techniques for polishing hubs?

The Guru:

http://www.raydobbins.com/polishing/

Campagnolo hubs seem to shine up pretty well with just fine steelwool and Semichrome. Anything that's more oxidized benefits from a buffing wheel.

It doesn't work that way. You go to the buffing wheel for a final polish after all of the oxidation has been removed by other means.

And it's Simichrome.

Ooh! Bookmarked it. Thanks!

However, let me make a pitch for "synthetic steel wool", basically a grey Scotchbrite pad. Easier on the hands and not as harsh on soft metals as steel wool.

For whatever reason, using WD40 as an initial polishing/cleaning medium with the syn steel wool works quite well for me. Just something I stumbled upon.

I got into a big long discussion about polishing campy hubs with a guy on eBay once. He insisted that the hubs were anodized and even a little polish would remove the finish, and (in his opinion) ruin the hubs. I was selling, and he wanted to know if I'd ever polished them. No, I hadn't, unless cleaning them with a rag is polishing (which, I suppose, it is). He didn't end up buying them. I still am not sure that the old style campy hubs are anodized, though. They shine very easily compared to the rest of the parts in those groups.

I personally like the little leather strips with the reflector attached. Shine your hubs safely at night!

Then how DOES it work?

Thank you my brutha!

In my experience, if the part is anodized, you can polish it by hand with a rag and some auto polish. It won't remove scratches, just clean the surface, and there will be no black residue on the cloth. If it isn't anodized and has scratches or marks, you could use some very fine sandpaper (#600/#1000) and then auto polish. But if you want to remove scratches or pitting on an anodized part, you must remove all the anodizing first. No problem with that, except you should polish the part frequently afterwards because it'll be prone to spots, e.g. if it gets wet.

I've worked with early 70's Tipo hubs and they are definitely NOT anodized. I think my modern Veloce hubs are as they have a very shiny, bright polish to them even though they are 6 years old and I've never done anything to them but wash them with dish soap and a soft cloth. Not sure when in-between that change was made.

He stated that more oxidized pieces benefit from a buffing wheel. It's not true. The oxidation is removed before you get to that stage of the process. The buffing wheel is for the final polish.

Well, I use 2 different buffing wheels with 2 different polishing compounds: the first will easily remove oxidation; the second adds a smoother polish, though many times I omit using it because it makes parts too shiny for my tastes. Gouges and deep scratches you want to sand out before you start, but oxidation is just a surface effect on aluminum.

You can polish the anodizing off with a buffing wheel, though it takes quite a bit of work.

The Campagnolo Tipo and Record/Nuovo Record hubs were never anodized. I don't think Normandys or Zeus are either, nor the Gnutti I recently built. Don't know about the Japanese stuff.

yeah, I think that guy was full of, ah, cheese. or something. The record hubs do shine up nicely.

...and the little leather straps do a pretty good job, too.

Ray Dobbins' (excellent) article has a list of what Campy (Record?) components were anodized, and which weren't. Hubs, seatposts not; crank arms, SR headset and RD aluminum, brake caliper arms yes. If you look closely, you can generally tell by the color.

Ignaz Schwinn approved! :)