| Author | Message | ||
     Fahren |
"a scotch bright and some wizards polish" purchased, no doubt, on your last trip to Diagon Ally? Sorry - couldn't resist. | ||
| Gunut75 |
I just tried a small section of my header. It will be finished tomorrow (seeing as half the bike is disassembled). Good tip. I'm going to leave the dent in the header alone LOL. | ||
| Swamp2 |
Bads1 - I normally am not all that inspired by custom paint jobs - but that is one totally insane looking bike you've got there. Very cool! | ||
| Brightbuell |
I have an 09 firebolt and the WD40 thing worked great!! I dont know about the older years. All I can sugest is to try it in a small section first. | ||
| Gunut75 |
Mine is an 05. | ||
| Brightbuell |
Gunnut post some pics when your done with yours. | ||
| Gunut75 |
Ill put em up later this morning.  | ||
| Gunut75 |
This is before.  This is during  and after.......  The header still has a raw material look. The pics actually make it look a lot brighter than it really is. I think I will try a heavier grade scotch brite pad and move to finer grades as I see fit. If the scotch brite does not get bright enough, I will wet sand it. | ||
| Iman501 |
looks good gnut!, i picked up some wd40 and blue scotbright pads from menards last night and tried it a little bit, it seemed to shine them up a bit, but not near as much as yours! i'm thinking i need to find a better pad to use, something a little rougher i'm thinking. (did you guys run your bike and let the headers get hot after you polished them up at all?....) | ||
| Gunut75 |
I have not run it yet. Lots of snow, and shes' all taken apart.  | ||
| Brightbuell |
I used the green pads and it worked fine. | ||
| Gunut75 |
I'll try a more aggressive pad on Monday. Then a few more pics. I used a maroon colored one. I think your green one is a little coarser. My finish isn't as consistent as yours. Looks waaaaay better than it did though.  | ||
| Gunut75 |
I also have a newer bead blast finish header up stairs in my office. It has the same dent as the one on the bike. lol | ||
| Brightbuell |
How did you get the dents? | ||
| Gunut75 |
The header on the bike is original. I dumped it on the test ride. Piss poor planning on my part. It was 35 deg/ 70% humidity all day, and I stopped at the first stop sign to do a light check. All good. Went to take off (very easily) and low sided her before I moved 2 feet. Moral of the story? Dont test ride a bike in anything below 40 degrees. I didn't take wind into account, which creates black ice. Only scuffed the passenger peg, turn signals (both), a little mirror, and finally my header. The frame pucks were not on there when it happened. Lucky me, the bike went down so softly it never touched the frame. When I got back he said " How do you like it?". I said "Heres yer money". The other header I have already had the(same)dent when I got it. No test rides for me in the cold, especially with a brand new rear tire.............................................. ................I'm so tired of winter.  | ||
| Iman501 |
that sux! least it gave you more reason to buy the bike thought hu?!  i've been buffing away at my headers today, i just think my problem was that i was impatient. and once you step back and look at them you really notice the difference! mine dont look as good as the others yet, but i'll keep at it | ||
| Xb12srider |
that header looks nice compared to mine, when i first got my bike i never adjusted the dampners cause i was too excited to ride and ended up dumping it at 50 mph. I think i'm gonna weld it up and smooth it over then i'm gonna spend a few hours polishing and hopefully it looks better than new. | ||
| Gunut75 |
that sux! least it gave you more reason to buy the bike thought hu?! I'll be honest with ya. I waited for a year or so to find a 12R in that year, color, totally unmolested, 99% condition, and only 6200 on the clock. When I stopped in, I was not planning a test ride due to weather. I had the full amount of money in my pocket, and was going to try bargaining down when I got there. Luck did not throw me any chips to play with, so I paid the full $5500. I knew one thing. I was NOT leaving that dood's house without the title, and I would be back the next day with a truck to pick it up. It was my third time there to look at the bike, and I had intent. It took me 4-5 years to get the loot together, a year to find the bike I wanted, and less than 2 seconds to "personalize" it.  Best investment I have ever made. If I never bought it, I wouldn't be here now, havin' fun with it. Would have never met any of these people, made any of these friends. I'm gettin to work on that thing.  | ||
| Gunut75 |
I scrubbed the header with WD and 400 grit to get the OEM finish lines off of it. Then used the scotch brite pad with the WD that was left on from sanding. It now looks ceramic coated. Took a little while. I could see doing this once a month for a season, using different compounds, and the header getting brighter and brighter. I'm going to leave it the way it is, just cuz I like the "industrial" look of it. It looks just like my previous pics, only slightly brighter. I just took my muffler off, and am going to paint it with "Alumahide 2" from the Brownell's catalog. I got a can of gunmetal gray, and it's finish is very close to an 05 frame. I'll post pics when I'm done. Time to start sandblasting.  | ||
| Living_illusions |
Here are the pipes my wife's bike after 30 minutes. It's on an '07 XB12r. I did her bike first. Some may see the chivalry in that I did hers first, others may see that if I screwed up...at least it wasn't on mine...LOL Kevin   | ||
| Brightbuell |
Looks great! OH!, and Gunut thanks for sharing your story. I just dont think I could let some one do a test ride unless I had cash in hand. I dont have full coverage insurence. Did it scrape the forks or swingarm? | ||
| Gunut75 |
There was cash in hand. Thats the only reason he let me ride it. Little nicks in the forks AND swingarm. Ordered frame pucks, and made a set of sliders right away. | ||
| Mm128 |
Ok.... here is the long on the polishing... I as most of you remember have had SEVERAL Buells... about 12 to be exact... Just picking up my new to me 2002 X1 this weekend... while it ONLY has about 3K miles.. its headers are near perfect... I have been toying with the idea of polishing mine AGAIN.....or simply sending them out to have them hot coated.... Here is how I did my X1 and my S1 years ago. Started with a good cleaning and dried them off. Used 400-480 grit sand paper... rubbed them down till the brown coloring was going. Moved up to mid 500's same thing Moved to 800's same thing. At 800 once you have finished with the sanding moved to WET SANDING! Just keep a bucket of water and dip the paper in it and keep going. Move to 1000. While using 1000 rub it in some metal polishing compound. Keep rubbing. 1500 grit keep doing the same 2000 grit same thing. At the END of 2000 they will be a MIRROR shine. Is it a TON of work? YES!!! But the work is worth it in the end. Approximate time....? Well... on my last X1 it took be about 10 hours, but I was drinking a couple of cold ones in the process. HINT/WARNING ! ... USE GLOVES unless you like sore fingers WITHOUT finger prints. Matt (LEO SOUTH GA.) | ||
| Gunut75 |
Fingerprints are overrated. Ask any mason/bricklayer.  | ||
| Johnboy777 |
I use S100 Polishing soap every other time I ride it for 10 minutes or so.  | ||
| Odar |
Living Illusions Did you use scotch brite and WD40 for that -07 XB? Looks very good, for only 30 minutes work. Odar | ||
| Living_illusions |
Odar... Yes, I only used the green scotch brite pads and WD40. I noticed that the pads did loose their abrasiveness pretty quickly though. Kevin | ||
| Odar |
Thanks alot Kevin for that quick reply, I will give it a try, its a very cold and snowy winter here in Sweden so I got plenty of time. Didnt know if it was working on our exhaust with this surface thats on the -07 models. Odar | ||
| Living_illusions |
Odar...that was my concern as well. From the info I had read, it sounded like the 07's may not be a good year for that. I decided to try a small spot and just go for it and i like how it turned out. Post some pics when you're done. Kevin | ||
| Odar |
Kevin It looks like the surface is still the same "non glossy" matte finish and that is what I want it to bee, you didnt distroy any of that? Odar |
