Favorite products/tools for restoring/cleaning bike?
 

I just recently bought a 1984 Bianchi Randonneur and I'm trying to clean it up a bit. The first thing I did was give it a thorough cleaning just with some soap water and towel which definitely helped. I also searched online for ways to remove rust and polish chrome and one of the items that came up was Aluminum Foil and water so I tried it out and it worked beautifully.

It seems like every day on this forum I see people posting pics of their newly restored bikes and I wanted to find out what tools or products people are using to make their bicycle shine.

Oxalic Acid for the rust. Any number of mag/alum polishes for the shiny bits. Meguire's paint products for the paint.

Oxalic acid does the trick on rust. I like Simple Green for cleaning/degreasing. PB Blaster is great for stuck parts/nuts/bolts. It also works great for cleaning the really grimy stuff, though not a very cost effective solvent. Meguiar's ScratchX 2.0 works great on the paint. Mothers Mag & aluminum polish for the aluminum stuff.

~kn

EDIT... Didn't mean to parrot you Bob ;)

Walmart Rust Remover $5
WD40 in the big can $3
Green scrubbing pads $1
Toothbrushes $2
Dishwashing liquid $2
0000 Steel wool $4
Shop rags and old towels
A bucket.
Citrus degreaser
White Lightning or some other lube
A sponge.

Concentrated Awesome cleaner from the dollar store, Brillo pads, SOS pads, toothbrushes, Turtle Wax polishing compound, Turtle Wax rubbing compound, Simonize (& every other) car wax, Noxon, WD40, and whatever else I can get my hands on.

Disposable vinyl gloves!

indeed Oxalic acid makes a nice derusting bath, but for light rust pimples and polishing chrome, I really like Chromax Metal Polish..a nontoxic paste and old faithful triple '0' steel wool. I don't know where i'd be without PB Blaster and I recently discovered Simple Green. lovely stuff. I have an assortment of brushes from the hardware store, including a few kitchen brushes. For making shiny shiny, i use paste and liquid turtle waxes to put a final finish on the beast.