So, having admired Piddy's shiny exhaust manifold at the SG7s camping weekend, and having never really attempted to clean my car properly, let alone polish any part of it I decided this weekend to give it a proper wash and bodywork polish. That went well - shiny car - cleaner than usual - alloy and steel bits brighter than usual - but I felt that the shiny bits could be shinier. At that point I should have listened to my inner voices urging restraint, but tonight I popped into Halfords and picked up a tube of Solvol Autosol, or as it shall now be forever known, the Devil's Toothpaste.

I sat down and gave the NSF rim of my Superlites a cursory rub with a bit of the Toothpaste on a bit of old T shirt, then buffed it off. Bugger - properly shiny patch, will have to do the whole rim now.... So, some time later and with aching fingers the near side of the car has shiny bits. Shiny exhaust headers (still a nice golden straw colour, but shiny golden straw), shiny exhaust silencer ( I thought that bit was actually pretty shiny - but no, the Devil's Toothpaste proved otherwise). Before I knew it the air cleaner, wheel rims, exhaust trims, and sill protectors were all shiny ! Other side tomorrow evening - I'll be afraid to drive it now - all your fault Piddy....

Simon

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you cant beat a good buffing

Will take a few pics tomorrow when I have some light !

Simon

Solvol is good, but McGuirs metal polish / paste (in a bluish jar) is better. (ask Rusty Nuts)

But them so is my linen mop on a 3000 rpm spindle. Just a bit difficult to get the car up to the bench

The devils toothpaste. Hehe I like that. I am a real sucker for 'lets just give that a good buffing'. I seem to spend 50 percent of my time buffing. I buffed the RV8's harmonic balancer last night thinking 'I can't put it on when its that dullard brown colour.' The finish doesn't last however.

[Edited on 22/6/10 by Irony]

Erm ..... how can I say this ......

I also spent a few hours taking off my 'orrible brown stainless exhaust and cat, polishing them with said toothpaste, making sure I got into all the little crevices (using a toothbrush in fact) getting them all nice and shiny. When I had finished, and with aching fingers, I reassembled everything and decided to go for a blat to make sure nothing was going to leak or fall off. When I got back I had another look at my nice, shiney zorst and found someone had replaced it with a horrible brown one again!

Gah!

p.s. Can I blame Piddy too?

[Edited on 22-6-10 by RazMan]

LOl you should have looked at mine and not his. Youd have left it then!! Cant be bothered with all that "shiney" stuff. I built mine to use it.

I am currently in the process of polishing some steel/ali parts and then wacking a coat of clear powder coat over them with my Electrostatic magic kit. I am hoping it will keep the shiny shiny finish.

I am also building mine to use it. I just want to use it shiny.

I nearly polished my side panels once but managed to stop myself for the very reason this thread refers to...too much hrd work and no way of knowing where to stop.....

Takes me back, I once made the mistake of starting to T-cut the roof of a white polo I was about to sell. 30mins late it looked really good but made the rest of the car look utter cr*p. Spent the next 4 hours finishing the job