How to polish a motorbike

How to polish a motorbike

How to polish a motorbike

motorbike engine

One of the most common conversations with have with our customers is how to polish their motorbikes. 

Keeping your motorbike free from rust, pitting and oxidization are all common issues that we can help you navigate. 

Recently a customer asked us the following in relation to his motorbike:

“I came across your website, and wondered if you had anything suitable for cleaning up some aluminium engine cases on a motorcycle.

There’s the usual pitting and oxidisation to get rid of, and my aim is to get a nice clean finish on my motorbike that will be easier to maintain. I’m not intending to get it to mirror polish stage (it’s not to create a show bike) just a nice even satin finish (close to factory fresh).

Have you got any ideas on how to help me?”

Luckily for our customers, we have two motorbike enthusiasts at Moleroda. Kev, Director of Sales regularly arrives at work in his leathers and Dave out in Stores, is also a keen motorbike man. Therefore, they have both tried and tested various ways to polish their motorbikes with Moleroda products and come up with the following advice. The below guidance is specifically in relation to the customers enquiry above. 

In order to clean up and polish, like so many polishing jobs. There are several stages to the process.

Process 1: Surface preparation

One of our main recommendations for use on the aluminium casing around your motorbike engine is to use Kit 54. Kit 54 is one of our best selling kits.

This is a surface preparation kit which offers the rust removal (Red) and Brush finish (Green) with the taper on a 6mm spindle. This is mainly used on a grinder as we are looking to achieve approx. 8 MS (8 meters per second) surface speed. However this is also used on rechargeable drills.

Another alternative, if you are doing much more accurate work on your motorbike, is to try our RODA NyWheels. 

  • C100 grade superior brown if really rusty.
  • C110 Black if not too bad.

The RODA NyWheels come already mounted on a 3mm spindle to use directly in your dremel or drill. 

£9.78£22.62 incl VAT
RODA
£20.00£24.42 incl VAT

Now that the surface has been prepared on your motorbike engine casing, we can work on the final look. This is made up of several stages. Below puts forward the stages from dirty to mirror finished. You can then eliminate any stages you don’t want to do. 

Process 2: Cut and Colour Polishing:

We recommend using a small dry Sisal mop that winds onto a taper mandrel (MM17) and using Abracut Polish Bar which is a cut and colour bar to remove all light scratching. This will now leave a really nice, bright polished finish on your motorbike. You will need to decide if this is enough as some of our customers want to mirror their bikes and some want to stop here…

£5.38£13.88 incl VAT
£1.84£7.48 incl VAT

Mandrels, Pigtails & Tapers

Taper Mandrel on a 6mm shank

£8.90£16.34 incl VAT

Compounds

Vienna Lime

£1.84£5.35 incl VAT

Also…..just for you…here is a trick of the trade…

A polishers golden secret and is using Vienna lime powder. We use this between every polishing stage. It absorbs all of the wax and any dirt from the previous stage and is amazing. Just dab your finger with a soft cloth and apply to the motorbike. One small bag will last for about 300 years (Maybe a slight exaggeration) so you will only need a small bag…).

Process 3: Colour

This process will help to bring the colour up on your motorbike. Use a dollie mop along with 200D. 2000D is suitable for all metals including aluminium, brass, steel, silver etc. It is a very good – green – one operation bar and produces a nice finish.

As before, use the lime after this stage again,  this will now offer you a very bright finish. Only if you want a mirror finish, do you need to go to the last process. If not, you can stop here. 

£1.62£4.75 incl VAT

Compounds

Vienna Lime

£1.84£5.35 incl VAT

Process 4: Gloss

This is the final, gloss stage (Mirror Finish) we usually advise the FF9 gloss bar as this is a very bright clean bar. But we also recommend the 309BX (slightly softer mirror look) and the Menzerna M5 (maybe the best gloss bar, but you do pay a premium for it).

£8.41£46.20 incl VAT

Dollie Polishing Mops

Soft Calico WDR Dollie Mops

£4.26£6.26 incl VAT

Compounds

Vienna Lime

£1.84£5.35 incl VAT

For any other advice or help on polishing up your motorbike,  or any other materials, do not hesitate to give us a call on 01722711988 or email sales@moleroda.com or visit our contact us page and we can put you in touch with our polishing experts.  Also take a look at our you tube page for polishing videos and our instagram account for recent work we have done. 

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