Refurbishing S8 mirrors

[notorious]

I'd suggest to send them to body shop to finish with clear lacquer. I assume what we see in your pictures is bare aluminium. Aluminium cab be polished to mirror shine, but it'll oxidate within one salty winter, so the advise is to cover mirrors with clear lacquer or perhaps even power paint with sparkling silver paint.

[Nollywood]

I'd probably be looking to get them anodized.

[ainarssems]

They are either anodized or coated with clear lacquer originally. A frind of mine had polished alloy wheels on BMW and he were cleaning them every week and polishing every 2 weeks to keep them in good condition. Also using some kind of wax to protect from corrosion and not using in winter.

[47p2]

Looking good.

Keep the sanding in as straight a line as possible, then when you move to the next grade sand at 90 degrees to the lines on the cover, then go 90 degrees again etc.

What this does is remove the last lot of lines made by the wet & dry, because it is done at 90 degrees it doesn't open the groves but flattens them down, sounds a bit crazy but it works

Remember
400
1200
2000
Then polish

[Conan_the_Librarian]

The S8 alluminium mirrors are solid and annodised. I have removed the annodisiation on a set and it took several hours with 80 grit flap wheels. It then took far longer to repolish the alluminim to a mirror finish, acid etch and lacquer. If a stone strike has pierced the anodising then corrosion will set in and there is no way to get the pittting out and maintain the anodised coat. Once the annodised coat is removed it is like a polished wheel rim. You need to keep doing it.

I'm sure I have put some photos on here somewhere.

Here.

HTH
CtL

[Jake242]

Originally Posted by 47p2

Looking good.

Keep the sanding in as straight a line as possible, then when you move to the next grade sand at 90 degrees to the lines on the cover, then go 90 degrees again etc.

What this does is remove the last lot of lines made by the wet & dry, because it is done at 90 degrees it doesn't open the groves but flattens them down, sounds a bit crazy but it works

Remember
400
1200
2000
Then polish

Sounds like good advise:-)

Im using
80
120
240
500 wet
800 wet
1200 wet
and 2000 wet

then hand polished with autosol

I had to go 80 to get the bad stone-chips away... I'm down to bare aluminium now... but need to grain up again to get some of the scratches the bigger grain sandpaper did

I will see if I can find a place to anodize them.... £225 and probably +20 hours of manual labour.... not gonna skip on the finish

/Jake

[47p2]

Do you need to go as course as 80 even 120, this must put horrendous scores on the ally and will be a nightmare to remove the scoring.

Try starting with the 240

[Jake242]

Originally Posted by 47p2

Do you need to go as course as 80 even 120, this must put horrendous scores on the ally and will be a nightmare to remove the scoring.

Try starting with the 240

I had one chip(the one that looked like there was plastic underneath) it was like 1/2 mm.... went through the anodized layer, so I had to take the entire anodized layer off... with 240 this would take 15 hours alone:-)

The last picture I posted shows a finish that has not been polished(as I have no polishing machine)... I recon I can finish it down so no visible scratches is there... then send it to an anodizing place that can chemical clean and polish it and then anodize it, thats the plan anyways.

I will update once everything is done.

Cheers for the good advise all around

/Jake