Alaskan Rover
05-27-2012, 10:24 AM
I'm Starting this thread for all those contemplating stripping the paint and polishing the bare Birmabright of your Series Rover.
I actually started the process SIX years ago.
I began by initiating a 6 year long test to see how weather, sun and acid rain affected bare Birmabright with no coating whatsoever. I stripped all the paint off the hood and back door with chemical stripper and elbow grease...polished it, and then left it totally BARE for 6 years...never touching it except for washing every few months. I also wanted to test using steel wool to strip the paint with (using chemical stripper)...there was NO problem of bits of steel wool embedding in the aluminum and rusting...and no bi-metallic reaction caused by any micron-sized bits of wool. I don't think any steel wool was left behind to cause a problem.
Result: Absolutely NO oxidation or deterioration of the birmabright WHATSOEVER! The aluminum did get slightly dull...but took 3 years even to dull down. No white residue noted anywhere. Structural integrity fully intact everywhere. Six year oxidation test VERY successful....virtually NO oxidation. Birmabright is the most amazing alloy I've seen. It is something like 7% Magnesium; 1% Manganese and 92% Aluminum. I think it must be the Magnesium and Manganese that stops the build-up of surface Aluminum Oxide...but not sure...SOMETHING sure does. This is the same material used on antique planes that haven't seen paint in 65 years!
With those good results of that long-term test...4 days ago I went ahead and stripped the rest of the paint off all the panels in the same fashion. Last-time, however, I just used stripper and Brillo pads....and so I never got a really shiny final polish. This time I did it better....using a series of steel wool from #2 all the way to ultra fine #0000. I chemically stripped it using #0 wool...having to resort to #2 course in a few tough spots.
After all the paint was off...it was polishing time:
I started by using #00 and for whatever reason I continued using the Strip-Eaze...this time as a polishing compound, as the rubbing compound was seeming to turn things dark grey instead of silver. After #00, I went back over the section with #000, and then finally #0000...using less pressure each time. I did ALL aluminum sections this way...even the vents. All panels and vents became shiny.
But now have a conundrum and need help from someone who's already done the FINAL polishing. As you might know....Rover used some sort of chemical etcher before painting...or maybe the birmabright came from the aluminum factory with that yellowish very thin top seal. Anyway, the Birmabright polishes up beautifully shiny....but if you look at it dead-on, you still see the yellowish color in places. This CAN be gotten rid of by MORE useage of steel wool...BUT doing so is difficult to get the pressure uniform. I've done some small test sections and polished away ALL the yellow and it TRULY is gorgeous...but how does one do this to ALL the panels while keeping everything uniform??? If I had a robotic arm lying around, I could do it. But lacking that, I am in a quandry.
Any suggestions on polishing past that yellowish layer while keeping a uniform look without taking WEEKS?
As the whole vehicle is now shiny, I'm stopping here...but I WOULD like to polish past the places where that yellowish tint is. Oddly, the doors don't have that yellowish layer and polished immediately to a beautiful silver.
The fenders are where that extremely thin yellowish tint is.
I have one idea...but is a step I'm scared to take. I can use #2 course steel wool in LINEAR strokes (NEVER use circular strokes with steel wool!!) to get past the yellowish layer...which gives it sort of a brushed stainless steel look...and can leave it that way...at least the yellow would be totally gone...OR I can then start the polishing over again using ever finer steel wool from #0 to #0000. I'm just not sure if the micro-lines from the course #2 wool would still be underneath after polishing with #0000 wool.
Tips I've learned:
1) NEVER use a machine to polish the aluminum...do ALL your polishing by hand, working up finally to a very light pressure when you get to the #0000 wool. The polishing/buffing machines seem to leave tiny little circles in the aluminum..even the random orbital ones.
2) Try and only use linear motions (the exact opposite of what you'd do when polishing a painted car...there I use light circular motion ...just like in Karate Kid. I don't know why this is, but linear seems to do a better job on bare metal...AS long as you are using very light strokes.
3) change wool pads OFTEN.
4) Of the retail-grade chemical strippers, Strip-Eaze seems to work the best. I tried Kutzit...way too weak!
5) Don't use a scraping blade...it causes scratches unless used with surgical precision...and if you're a surgeon, you're probably paying someone else to do the job anyway! If the first coat of stripper doesn't get all the paint off, just apply a second course and use more wool.
6) As it would be silly to now have the aluminum body panels suddenly look great but have cruddy steel firewall, grill panel, hinges and rear bumper...I went ahead and painted grill panel, firewall and rear bumper flat black and the hinges semi-glossn black. Black seems to go very well with silver. I left the top white, as the paint on the top was in excellent shape and waxes well, and white goes well with silver, too!
7) Someone had mentioned that steel wool particles may embed in the aluminum, either causing brown rust spots OR an electrolysis caused by the differing metals. Make SURE, after the final polishing job with steel wool is done, that you COMPLETELY and THOROUGHLY VACUUM all areas of the rover to vacuum away the wool dust. That should get any steel wool particles off. ONLY then can you wash all panels of the Rover with soap and rinse. If you can find BRONZE wool in such fine micro-abrasive grades such as #0000, that would be best...but I've found no such item.
End result?
What an INCREDIBLE difference!!!
The paint was getting ridiculously sun-faded for years...and in many places showing through to bare aluminum. Series Rovers always look good and cool no matter what the paint condition is...but taking a couple weekends and stripping and polishing the aluminum takes what was once a venerable old war-horse and makes it something incredibly show-worthy!! The dings that I've had in it cease to even be seen amidst the polished aluminum, and in fact the dings in the polished panels look even cooler.
My Rover has always turned heads, because I've always kept it looking "safarish" with my tow ropes wrapped around the front military bumper, etc...but NOW it will step over the line into 'show-stopper'. I think a lot of people don't realize that Series Rover bodies are TOTALLY aluminum...when they see a polished bare aluminum one it, startles them.
The few botched polishing jobs with ugly swirl marks I've seen I think came from using circular sander/buffers. Stick to hand polising like they did on the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, and it will look grand.
Now I just have to figure out if I want to spend a WEEK more, polishing away that yellowish tint on the rear fenders. Still looking for helpful ideas on this!!
Don't paint over the BEAUTIFUL and totally incredible invention of Birmabright...be PROUD of it and GO BARE !!!
Photos coming when I move it out into the sunlight!
I actually started the process SIX years ago.
I began by initiating a 6 year long test to see how weather, sun and acid rain affected bare Birmabright with no coating whatsoever. I stripped all the paint off the hood and back door with chemical stripper and elbow grease...polished it, and then left it totally BARE for 6 years...never touching it except for washing every few months. I also wanted to test using steel wool to strip the paint with (using chemical stripper)...there was NO problem of bits of steel wool embedding in the aluminum and rusting...and no bi-metallic reaction caused by any micron-sized bits of wool. I don't think any steel wool was left behind to cause a problem.
Result: Absolutely NO oxidation or deterioration of the birmabright WHATSOEVER! The aluminum did get slightly dull...but took 3 years even to dull down. No white residue noted anywhere. Structural integrity fully intact everywhere. Six year oxidation test VERY successful....virtually NO oxidation. Birmabright is the most amazing alloy I've seen. It is something like 7% Magnesium; 1% Manganese and 92% Aluminum. I think it must be the Magnesium and Manganese that stops the build-up of surface Aluminum Oxide...but not sure...SOMETHING sure does. This is the same material used on antique planes that haven't seen paint in 65 years!
With those good results of that long-term test...4 days ago I went ahead and stripped the rest of the paint off all the panels in the same fashion. Last-time, however, I just used stripper and Brillo pads....and so I never got a really shiny final polish. This time I did it better....using a series of steel wool from #2 all the way to ultra fine #0000. I chemically stripped it using #0 wool...having to resort to #2 course in a few tough spots.
After all the paint was off...it was polishing time:
I started by using #00 and for whatever reason I continued using the Strip-Eaze...this time as a polishing compound, as the rubbing compound was seeming to turn things dark grey instead of silver. After #00, I went back over the section with #000, and then finally #0000...using less pressure each time. I did ALL aluminum sections this way...even the vents. All panels and vents became shiny.
But now have a conundrum and need help from someone who's already done the FINAL polishing. As you might know....Rover used some sort of chemical etcher before painting...or maybe the birmabright came from the aluminum factory with that yellowish very thin top seal. Anyway, the Birmabright polishes up beautifully shiny....but if you look at it dead-on, you still see the yellowish color in places. This CAN be gotten rid of by MORE useage of steel wool...BUT doing so is difficult to get the pressure uniform. I've done some small test sections and polished away ALL the yellow and it TRULY is gorgeous...but how does one do this to ALL the panels while keeping everything uniform??? If I had a robotic arm lying around, I could do it. But lacking that, I am in a quandry.
Any suggestions on polishing past that yellowish layer while keeping a uniform look without taking WEEKS?
As the whole vehicle is now shiny, I'm stopping here...but I WOULD like to polish past the places where that yellowish tint is. Oddly, the doors don't have that yellowish layer and polished immediately to a beautiful silver.
The fenders are where that extremely thin yellowish tint is.
I have one idea...but is a step I'm scared to take. I can use #2 course steel wool in LINEAR strokes (NEVER use circular strokes with steel wool!!) to get past the yellowish layer...which gives it sort of a brushed stainless steel look...and can leave it that way...at least the yellow would be totally gone...OR I can then start the polishing over again using ever finer steel wool from #0 to #0000. I'm just not sure if the micro-lines from the course #2 wool would still be underneath after polishing with #0000 wool.
Tips I've learned:
1) NEVER use a machine to polish the aluminum...do ALL your polishing by hand, working up finally to a very light pressure when you get to the #0000 wool. The polishing/buffing machines seem to leave tiny little circles in the aluminum..even the random orbital ones.
2) Try and only use linear motions (the exact opposite of what you'd do when polishing a painted car...there I use light circular motion ...just like in Karate Kid. I don't know why this is, but linear seems to do a better job on bare metal...AS long as you are using very light strokes.
3) change wool pads OFTEN.
4) Of the retail-grade chemical strippers, Strip-Eaze seems to work the best. I tried Kutzit...way too weak!
5) Don't use a scraping blade...it causes scratches unless used with surgical precision...and if you're a surgeon, you're probably paying someone else to do the job anyway! If the first coat of stripper doesn't get all the paint off, just apply a second course and use more wool.
6) As it would be silly to now have the aluminum body panels suddenly look great but have cruddy steel firewall, grill panel, hinges and rear bumper...I went ahead and painted grill panel, firewall and rear bumper flat black and the hinges semi-glossn black. Black seems to go very well with silver. I left the top white, as the paint on the top was in excellent shape and waxes well, and white goes well with silver, too!
7) Someone had mentioned that steel wool particles may embed in the aluminum, either causing brown rust spots OR an electrolysis caused by the differing metals. Make SURE, after the final polishing job with steel wool is done, that you COMPLETELY and THOROUGHLY VACUUM all areas of the rover to vacuum away the wool dust. That should get any steel wool particles off. ONLY then can you wash all panels of the Rover with soap and rinse. If you can find BRONZE wool in such fine micro-abrasive grades such as #0000, that would be best...but I've found no such item.
End result?
What an INCREDIBLE difference!!!
The paint was getting ridiculously sun-faded for years...and in many places showing through to bare aluminum. Series Rovers always look good and cool no matter what the paint condition is...but taking a couple weekends and stripping and polishing the aluminum takes what was once a venerable old war-horse and makes it something incredibly show-worthy!! The dings that I've had in it cease to even be seen amidst the polished aluminum, and in fact the dings in the polished panels look even cooler.
My Rover has always turned heads, because I've always kept it looking "safarish" with my tow ropes wrapped around the front military bumper, etc...but NOW it will step over the line into 'show-stopper'. I think a lot of people don't realize that Series Rover bodies are TOTALLY aluminum...when they see a polished bare aluminum one it, startles them.
The few botched polishing jobs with ugly swirl marks I've seen I think came from using circular sander/buffers. Stick to hand polising like they did on the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, and it will look grand.
Now I just have to figure out if I want to spend a WEEK more, polishing away that yellowish tint on the rear fenders. Still looking for helpful ideas on this!!
Don't paint over the BEAUTIFUL and totally incredible invention of Birmabright...be PROUD of it and GO BARE !!!
Photos coming when I move it out into the sunlight!