Truck wheel polishing machine

[nogimmix]

id suggest washing the rims with a brillo pad or using scotch brite rotary wheel. If you'd like to get a higher quality shine then you may want to sand the rims up to about 600 grit. From there you'd want to start with brown rouge and yellow wheel. For further polishing you can go yellow with green rouge and finally white wheel white rouge. Another suggestion is to use a lower rpm motor. About 1725 would suffice as the higher rpm motors tend to heat the rim too much which won't allow the rouge to do its job.

[jeffh837]

Hello, I wanted to try to help you in getting the best finish possible with your wheel polish machine you built. So the airway buff wheels they are using on their commercial machines are 14” diameter. They figured out the best speed of the buffing wheel to achieve the correct surface feet per minute as to get the correct amount of heat in the aluminum when polishing to get the best finish possible. Also 80 grit is way abrasive for aluminum. The professional polishers usually at 180 then 220 then 320 then I believe 400 then 600 and from there they use either the orange or yellow buff with brown Tripoli and then the yellow buff with the green rouge. Part of the problem you could be having is going from Tripoli straight to white coloring compound and you aren’t getting the mirror finish you want because you need to do a secondary cut using the green rouge. Watch Evans Detailing and Polishing on YouTube. He has a machine and he does 2 step on the wheel machine and gets a great finish. I used to use zephyr compounds but I’m not a fan, you can order great compound and the 14”airway buffs from GOshineon.com. Also great idea I have been thinking of a cheaper way to build a wheel polish machine to save my back and I love what you came up with. I hope nothing I said came across the wrong way I just did a ton of research on all the s.f.p.m depending on buff size and rpm to run and thought maybe it would point you in the right direction without having to rebuild anything on your machine. Have a great day and a happy NEW YEAR!