that's awesome! i have a set of yamaha aluminum hoops that i want to use, but the chrome is toast. i'll have to look into this.

Excelsior! That's a pretty good deal. I have heard of people going through a similar search with no success.

Any chance of seeing that finished shell. You know how we love shiny stuff. Also any tips for sanding around that center bead? I tried to hand polish an acro shell and I had the toughest time working around that bead. I may just break down and take it to someone to polish.

WOW!!!!!! Worth every penny for $40 I think.

Like many here I:

1. can't wait to see the finished product. I will probably PM you for more details.

….and….

2. I have two Supras that I want to do this to. A 60's 402 and a Pre-serial badge 400 supra.

Good luck with the rest of your restoration!

Curtis

I can see a Jelly-Bean chrome kit

Bumping this thread to follow up w/ the OP. Any luck on the polishing? I recent acquired a pre-stripped Supra and I do think that I'm far too cheap pay someone and just to polish this thing myself.

I was thinking about getting a used polisher from a pawn shop so I can avoid getting a cheapie model from Harbor Freight.

Edit: corrected that sentence to make sense.

Thanks for the bump - I'll shoot a picture or two tomorrow and update on the progress. Been a little side tracked with my only daughter graduating high school - been a very busy 5 months around here Mind Blowi

Yes, yes, show us the process.

I had my Supra de-chromed a while back and went after it with wire wheels, random orbit sander....

Mine was so deeply pitted that I started worrying that I was taking off too much material, but I did get it to a halfway decent "brushed" finish. It looks better than the acne'd chrome, so I left it at that stage.

One thing I am considering is getting it bead blasted to create a "peened" finish like a Macbook Air.

Regarding candy color re-chroming, color anodizing might be a better bet, because chrome over aluminum may eventually start pitting again.

Hey I was happy to see this get bumped - here's some updates...I know how images tell the story better so I'll flood you with some.

To start, I've been worried about what's the best technique to use and with so little real detail about the "rubber meets the road" vs "here's what you should do..." - usually for me there's quite a disconnect between theory and reality. Maybe my mistakes and tests/trials can benefit others here the way I've benefited from others' work on other projects. So here it goes...

I've used an early 70's Acro-lite as my 'cadaver' test dummy to iron out the "hows" before applying what I learn from it to the Supra. The first hang up was how to hold the drum rock steady while sanding. Here's what I came up with.

I took a patio deck end table and built a jig of sorts on it from scraps and hardware I had lying around. It went through a few iterations before I got it right. It clamps the drum without marring it and holds it perfectly locked in place. I simply loose the wing nuts on the threaded rod, rotate the shell a little and re-tighten.

Once that hurdle was cleared, I could start working it. First step - dual action orbital sander to take the anodized surface down to the same aluminum I would be facing with the Supra.

Wet? Dry? I read a million articles and talked to dozens of people before deciding go dry all the way. Just my choice - no right or wrong I believe. I just had to decide and do it.

The consensus was start at 220 grit on the sander, but no further. Everything from then on out would be hand sanding, moving to 400 grit and up.

So here's how it came off from a single round of 220 with orbital.

After that, I had started hand sanding and here's where things quickly halted. In trying to get the most even layering while sanding, I found that my fingers were my own worst enemy. I kept getting grooves from my finger-tips through the paper into the aluminum. I always knew aluminum was a soft metal, but I had no real idea just HOW soft.

So after several weeks of looking for just the right "thing" to use, I came up with this: the 3M WETORDRY Rubber Squeegee ($5 at any auto-parts store). It is THE ticket. It's firm yet flexible, and forms right up to the bead. So the hemispheres of flat aluminum are covered evenly. I cut the sandpaper (3M Wetordry P400) into small 2" by 3" strips and cover the end of the squeegee. It worked fantastic.