Exhaust scratches...How do I remove scratches from my exhaust tips?

[-Lebowski-]

Well my little sweetie this weekend when bored up at the lake took out a green 3M scrubbie pad and though that she would be nice and clean up the exhaust tips on the A6. Well they are now dull and scratched. How if possible, do I clean them up? I am not willing to order anything over the web right now as its not that important so I am looking OTC.



I tried by hand:

NXT metal polish

Mothers chrome



Metal polishing is not my thing....



TIA

[ZaneO]

Some fine steel wool may help.

[imported_Amused]

Eagle One Nevr-Dull Wadding Polish is pretty good OTC stuff, and cheap too! I`ve had good luck with it on my Prodrive exhaust tip. Flitz, however is probably my favorite metal polish, but that`s not as readily available locally and is far more expensive.

[-Lebowski-]

But how will those products remove the actuall scratches in the metal?

[imported_Grouse]

I have a different more appealing solution to this than the folks above



http://www.millteksport.com/products...cfm?modelid=10

[VroomVroom]

@ ^



I can`t think of an OTC product that would accomplish this, although I`ve not tried the Nevr-Dull polish. Escalating that, maybe a paint polishing compound followed by the Nevr-Dull? Good luck...

[imported_Amused]

How deep are these scratches? I`ve taken out minor scratches with Nevr-Dull. Ultra-fine steel wool followed by Nevr-Dull may serve you well if the tips are really scraped up. Compounding may work as well, but I`ve never tried that.

[DM101]

Sounds like your up the creek without a paddle. Best stuff I fpund is the Flitz metal polish. Someone can come up with a better product.

[the other pc]

Removing scratches from metal is no different from removing scratches from anything else. You start with a product that has enough cut to remove the scratches. Then you use a product with enough cut to remove marring caused by the previous product. Then you continue with progressively finer cutting products until any residual marring is invisible.



The only difference between polishing metal and polishing paint are the specifics of the products used, the principle remains the same.



There was too big a jump between the pad that caused the problem and the polishes you tried. You`ll need to add more intermediate steps. What steps you`ll need, abrasive sheets, finer non-woven abrasive pads, metal wool (steel, bronze, copper...), metal polishing compounds or whatever and how you apply them, hand or machine, will be determined by the base metal`s hardness and the depth of the scratches. You`ll need to experiment.



Metal polishing supplies are commonly available through machine shop supply vendors and industrial maintenance suppliers.





PC.

[-Lebowski-]

^^ interesting post, I guess I was concerned the most because I cannot use a machine, I cannot get in there. I will see what I can come up with with the posts thus far.

[svracer]

I`ve polished various parts on my motorcycles. Often they were painted parts to being with. When paint strippers didn`t work, I would sand off the paint with sand paper. I started with 80 (eight-zero) grit sand paper. You can imagine the scratches that left. Then I would progress to 100, 200, 400, 600 (wet sand from here and up), 800, 1000, 1500, 2000. Then I`d bring out the rubbing / polishing / metal polish compounds. With a lot of elbow grease I got MIRROR reflection. So you`re not SOL by a long shot. Just due for a lot of hard work.



The one benefit of exhaust tips is that they`re often round. So you can use long strips of sand paper to wrap around the tips - then pull it from side-to-side in rapid motions. It`s a lot easier than doing it the slower, more painful way.



Somewhere out there on the net I came upon mention of some kind of metal polishing fabric. Lucile or something. It`s a soft fabric impregnated with abrasives. It`s designed to be used in just this fashion - where you wrap it around a cylindrical object and pull the fabric in back-and-forth motions.



Good luck