General: Tips for getting smooth high polished finishes for beat up components?

I know there are countless articles, forum discussions, and how-to's concerning polishing metals (bicycle specific, even) on the intarweb, but I couldn't find a thread here... so here it is!

I decided I wanted to try and get a high polished finish for some beat up super record cranks that came on a ciocc I recently acquired. The cranks were in pretty poor state cosmetically, with countless little scratches and pits. I inquired about getting them polished at a local specialty metals shop, and was quoted 100 bucks to do it. I figured for that much I could buy all the equipment and just do it myself... A little googling lead me to the following how-to for polishing campagnolo components, which ended up working quite well for me:

http://www.raydobbins.com/polishing/

I picked up everything I needed for the task for around 70 bucks at lowes (skil bench grinder, oven cleaner, gloves, glasses, buffing wheels compounds), so I managed to stay ahead of the curve cost wise.

I tried the process out on the left arm of some beater cranks I had laying around first, and it worked out pretty well. I decided to keep that crank arm around as my scrap metal piece for smoothing out newly applied compound on the buffing wheel, so it doesn't gunk up on the piece I'm polishing. This morning I went to town on the super record cranks, and got a decent finish out of it:



The photo doesn't really display the shine that this crank arm puts off, but it's pretty damn impressive at the right angle in the sun. I'm happy with it for the most part, but I really want to try and smooth out some of the pits and scratches a little more. I had gone over it a little bit with some steel wool, but was hesitant to put too much into it in fear of doing more damage than good.

I was wondering if you folks had any pro-tips for the following:

a.) How to get the really nasty scratches and pits out without creating an uneven look, or doing damage to the cranks.
b.) How to get an even high polished finish on all those hard to reach nooks, crannys, and creavaces

I'm also planning on trying to polish up the fork. A lot of the chrome has dissipated, leaving mostly the nickel plating underneath showing. I'm wondering how I should approach buffing this to get as smooth a finish as possible, cause I'd rather keep the fork unpainted, and in as close to it's original state as possible.

Ok, after you read the PDF and apply it to many successful projects, I will call you to do my buffing and polishing. You will be the Yoda of buff then...

the stuff you polished turned out really well. I've always wanted to learn how to polish things, but never really got around to it. I had a friend who used to sometimes polish rims or cranks, and I was kind of put off by how long it took him, but he didn't have a bench grinder, so I'm sure that's a lot faster than doing it all by hand like he did. I'll have to read up on that when I have some free time and see about buying a buffing wheel and some compound. The wheels just fit in any grider I'm assuming? I forgot what I have. Ryobi maybe?

Thanks. Honestly the pictures don't do them justice, since they really look their best out in the sun.

Polishing them isn't difficult at all. It does take a lot of patience though, even with a bench grinder/buffing wheel, and you could be spending a few hours on it depending on the quality of the part when you start. I spent maybe 3 hours of my afternoon yesterday on the stem and chain rings, with most of that going towards getting the grit off the chain rings after stripping the anodization. If the part is in decent to new shape when starting, you're not looking at much more than an hour from start to finish.

I bought this bench grinder from lowes while it was on sale for 36 bucks. The buffing pads are usually about 4-5 bucks a piece, and the buffing compounds run about 3-4 a stick. You can even buy a pad/compound kit from sears from 20 bucks. If you choose to go that route, I would still recommend getting at least one (ideally two) flannel wheels for the final polishing.

A couple of things I've learned so far are:

a.) Bolt the grinder down to the corner of a work bench or table

You may be tempted not to do this, based on the flexibility of it not being bolted down. I learned this was a bad idea when I was polishing my bars, and it caught the wheel in a way that sent the bench grinder flying forward, landing on top of and crushing a can of easyoff that I had on the ground.

b.) Be careful not to over-apply the buffing compound.

It really only needs to be held against the edge of the wheel for a literal second, and any more will leave excess compound that will end up flung in your face, and smudged all over whatever you're polishing. I generally apply it on the opposing side of the wheel from myself, allowing it to go in the direction with the wheel so it doesn't fling up on my face.

c.) Don't get too comfortable with your grip.

If the part catches in the wheel, it could quite easily fly out of your hands like a bullet (and at you, depending on where you're standing in respect to where the wheel is spinning). I also learned this the hard way when polishing a chain ring with a flannel wheel, which it caught on to quite easily. Fortunately I was standing behind the wheel, so it flew forward out of my garage (no harm done to the ring though).

I suppose I've caught the bug to polish everything I get my hands on now, since it makes pretty much anything look amazing. I highly recommend it!

looks great!

Yup! Primarily a Linux user, but work started pushing me to use mac last fall. It makes me lazy, but I like it. The machinery ain't so scary as long as you're not a clumsy bloke like myself :)