How to Polish and Buff Aluminum Wheels to a Mirror Finish!

what's up YouTube Welcome Back to the

National Channel today we're getting

down and dirty polishing some Wheels I

made a video polishing some Alcoa super

singles a couple years ago now and I

wanted to kind of revisit this and we're

going to do it on a set of dually wheels

for the first gen Dodge which is sitting

outside right now let's get started with

what we're going to use to polish these

things

and I'll show you how we got them so

this is going to be one of the rear

outers

this is the other side rear outer I've

already got this one cleaned up ready to

polish

these are going to be the two fronts

and you can see these were probably ran

as fronts before

because this is super dirty here and

then the other side looks pretty clean

so what I'm going to do with the fronts

is just clean the inside I'm not going

to polish it and then we will polish

this face and that one obviously and

then that's going to be a rear inner and

this is a rear inner as well so the

inner I'm just going to kind of leave

brushed like this as long as it's clean

I'll probably throw a little bit of a

Polish on this but there's going to be

another wheel right here

so you're really not going to see this

especially with the tires I'm running in

case you guys want to see that I'll give

you a sneak peek

running 35 inch boggers on 22 inch

alcoas anyway let's get into this so

I've got this laid out kind of like

heavy cut over here

and then finishing over here

so this wheel which I've started with

um on the inside of the rears by the way

this is also heavy

cutting Airways

on less heavy metal this is like

basically like a Scotch Brite pad

I mean this is kind of similar like a

scotch brake pad here and then this one

is like really stiff and this thing will

eat just all the dirt and road Grime and

all that stuff off of there but you are

going to have to do some sanding after

this if you want to polish that surface

because this is very rough if you need

to clean up a wheel

you could use this what they call a

satin Airway so let me show you what we

use the satin Airway for

a wheel that looks like this

I'll use the satin Airway I'm going to

come in here probably clean it with some

alcohol or brake clean or some kind of

soap uh that'll break down some some of

the grease and grime and then we can use

the satin Airway and that's going to

make a wheel that looks like this

it'll make it look like this so there is

some like leftover residue and whatever

I'm going to try to clean that off but

we will be able to polish this

how it sits with with the heavy cutting

Airway so they call this the quick cut I

believe there's like a yellow piece in

here yeah so we use the orange buffing

wheel with the orange compound we use

the green buffing wheel

and I believe they call this a coloring

wheel with the green compound and then

we'll finish with this show and shine

Airway which is blue and then we'll use

the blue Compound on that so you have to

have a rake you can get this online with

all this stuff and that will clean out

your pad and just freshen it up kind of

fluff it up a little bit before you hit

the wheel what I'll do is show you with

the uh satin Airway which is that on

this wheel

and then I'll show you this at some

point on the inner of the front

and that will just basically clean

everything up and then we'll get into

polishing

if you are polishing you absolutely need

some kind of respirator or mask I made

this mistake last time and did not use a

respirator or a mask and it is some

dirty work let me tell you you'll be

blowing your nose with

just aluminum dust and all kinds of crap

coming out for weeks

it makes your throat hurt it's just all

around not good for you so do not

breathe this stuff in because

it is not good ready to go

you can speed it up a little bit but

this thing will start to eat into the

aluminum wheel if you go any further

than that

[Music]

all right I used the satin Airway on the

inside of this wheel and the inside of

this wheel now you can see a little bit

of kind of imperfection right there so

if you do not

remove that you will see it when you

polish this wheel

I will say it's a hundred percent worth

spending the 40 bucks on one of these uh

respirator things

[Music]

this is the second front I just finished

the first one with the orange wheel

which is the heavy cutting so what I did

on that one I'm going to repeat on this

I've got one of these sanding discs well

it's kind of like a hook and loop it's

got Velcro on it and then I've got a pad

in between and I've got a thousand grit

sandpaper

and that I can put on the grinder and

just run at really low speeds and sand

all these imperfections out here and in

here

I've got this spacer on here and it's

kind of like just an arbor extension

but it is super helpful when running

these polishing wheels it is very

convenient to run these so your pad

isn't right here next to the grinder

if that makes sense

now once you use the Thousand grit it

should look something like this

pretty good sanding marks but it is

pretty shiny and just completely clean

so now we're going to use the satin

Airway which is basically just Scotch

Brite on the buffing wheel we're going

to run that at around a thousand RPMs

and make sure all of these scratch marks

kind of go in a circle pattern around

the wheel and this should be a little

bit finer than 1000 grit so this should

take out the Thousand grit scratches and

then after that we'll be ready to hit it

with the orange polishing wheel which

will look like that

foreign

this wheel is ready to polish one thing

I want to mention is you basically want

to get this wheel looking completely

uniform around it so if there's any like

darker areas or lighter areas that means

it's either sanded you know more than

the rest of it or less than the rest of

it so you want everything to look the

same before you move on to polishing all

right I got the orange wheel on there I

want to give you guys a quick rundown on

exactly how to do this and then I'm

going to run it on the wheel and you can

follow along and then we'll change it

over to the green wheel with the green

compound and then blue after that and

these should be shining like a new penny

so when you get this thing on there

you want to hold the rake with your

handle like this and just kind of

feather the trigger so this thing

doesn't go crazy all right so

that's a very easy way to do it that's

all you need to do and you're going to

want to do that every time before you

put this on there so just hold this kind

of at an angle if you hold it like this

it's going to shoot out of your hand and

uh it can throw it pretty hard so it can

get kind of scary so just make sure you

kind of

that's all you need

you'll you might need to do that a

couple times while you're polishing the

wheel

you'll kind of get the feel for it

because

when you're running this polisher at

first it'll look really shiny and then

maybe you do half of it and it starts to