Polishing parts

[Spookies]

Hello all,

I bave been trying to clean, rub, polish the parts of my 72 Land Yacht. The only way I found to clean and remove the dirty darker layer is rubbing with steel wool, by hand! Is there anyway I can use any kind of tool? May be buffer? Please see images, you will understand what parts I am working on, thank you.
Aras

[Burnside Bob]

From what I've read about aluminum aircraft maintenance, steel wool and steel brushes are not recommended. The reason not to use them is that small fragments of steel can become embedded in the aluminum, causing catalytic corrosion at the resulting contact points.

I did a quick google search and here's one source which discusses what to use and what not to use on aluminum surfaces. There are others, and they all say the same thing.

https://www.faa.gov/regulations_poli...83-30_Ch06.pdf

This is fairly lengthy, so to find the nuggets about steel wool do the following:

After the .pdf loads, hit the "control" and "f" keys together. In the search box that opens, type "wool". Use the up down arrows in the search box to visit each place in the document that "wool" appears.

[jeg5263]

If anything a stainless steel wire brush you could use. But a buffer with the right compund would certainly work the easiest.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Buffing / polishing aluminum is not as easy as it first looks. It is very easy to round over edges and remove material from flat areas. The faster your "tool" goes, the more likely it is to get you into trouble. There is no "perfect" answer. I prefer 3M "scouring pad" material over steel wool. You can get it in a wide variety of "grits". One gotcha with it is that some solvents will dissolve it into goo ....

Bob