Polishing question

[kingdal]

Hello Reonauts!

Since I'm now obsessed with my Reos, I decided to try and get a mirror polish on the tumbled door of my Mini. First I tried applying Mothers Mag with a cotton cloth, after 10 min I'm not really seeing a difference. Then I tried sanding with 600 grit then 1000 grit followed by a cloth polishing wheel on a dremel, again with Mothers. Tiny bit shinier after 10 min but not really very visible, you gotta look really really close to be able to tell.

Looked up a bunch of posts and videos on youtube and nothing I saw tells me that I need to spend ages polishing this. Pretty much everyone seems to get a very noticeable improvement after what looks to be a short time. Anyone have any ideas how I should do this?

Also, it says on the bottle of Mothers that the cream should turn dark when applied. Mine stayed the same light color throughout. So it occurs to me that maybe I don't have a tumbled door. Can someone confirm what finish this door is? Its off a mini bought in 2012.



TIA

 

[karmakatie]

I think your door may be clear coated or really anodized silver as just cleaning my Raw Reo without any polish will produce black on the rag or qtips that I am using to clean it.

Is your mini an original that takes 14500 batteries or is it an mini 2.0 or 2.1?

 

[Ian444]

What Katie said ^^ it definitely looks like raw tumbled aluminum, it must have a clear coat on it. The polish should go black straight away. After the wet and dry sandpaper I use Autosol metal polish, then Mother's to finish it if I want the max possible shine. Autosol is magic stuff.

 

[kingdal]

I think you guys are right. I can see and feel a sort of gloss coating on this door. I wonder why it would be coated though.

Its a mini running an 18490. Guessing its a version 2.0?

 

[nerak]

Robert did some of the Tumbled with a clearcoat. The Tumbled Raw would have turned the cloth black with Mother's Mag.

Try some Mother's on the inside and check.

You should be able to sand off the clearcoat.

 

[kingdal]

Thanks for the suggestion Karen. Sanding may be too much trouble. Got a blemished tumbled raw door incoming

 

[nerak]

Thanks for the suggestion Karen. Sanding may be too much trouble. Got a blemished tumbled raw door incoming

Looking at your pic again, that might be a Anodized Silver door. Some of the anodizing back then was very thin. You could still see the tumbled marks.

I have a Silver Grand from then and it looks Tumbled.

First pic is Silver Anodized, second is Tumbled Raw

 

[Filthy-Beast]

Looking at your pic again, that might be a Anodized Silver door. Some of the anodizing back then was very thin. You could still see the tumbled marks.

I have a Silver Grand from then and it looks Tumbled.

First pic is Silver Anodized, second is Tumbled Raw

that is one of the best photos of the tumbled finish I've seen.

 

[kingdal]

Well my door definitely looks more like the silver anodized than the tumbled in that picture. I can see the tumbled marks but quite faint. Nothing like how it looks like raw.

Can't wait to get my tumbled door.

 

[kingdal]

Man, the passion for reos on this forum is so contagious! Now you all got me thinking about a tumbled grand...

 

[ratchet62]

For the older "silver" REO, I suspect that it is really Clear Anodized. Its the same process as a colored adodized, only no color is added.

Anodizing is rather hard. Its very hard on tooling such as drill bits, and very resistant to scratching. Therefore, it will require a lot of work to sand off the anodization in preparation for a polish.

 

[nerak]

For the older "silver" REO, I suspect that it is really Clear Anodized. Its the same process as a colored adodized, only no color is added.

Anodizing is rather hard. Its very hard on tooling such as drill bits, and very resistant to scratching. Therefore, it will require a lot of work to sand off the anodization in preparation for a polish.

The early Silver Anodized was silver. You could not see the tumbled marks. So I say silver color was added. Different anodizers would anodize with thicker results. The runs of anodized varied in thickness.

I have two Purple Grands, one made in 2011 and one in 2013. I can see the difference in the depth of the anodizing. The older one has no tumbled marks showing. The later one you can barely see the tumbled marks.

 

[ratchet62]

The early Silver Anodized was silver. You could not see the tumbled marks. So I say silver color was added. Different anodizers would anodize with thicker results. The runs of anodized varied in thickness.

I have two Purple Grands, one made in 2011 and one in 2013. I can see the difference in the depth of the anodizing. The older one has no tumbled marks showing. The later one you can barely see the tumbled marks.

Having not really seen a silver, I can't say for sure, so Karen is probably correct. I was mainly looking at the pics from OP, and with the tumble marks showing, felt it was probably a clear anodized. Clear anodize creates a gloss that will make the aluminum appear more silver.

As for variations in anodize thickness, you can get varying results, which would explain the appearance of tumble marks.

My main point, since I seemed to wandered a bit, is that anodization is very hard to sand off and then polish.