How has he managed to do this?

[Hellboydce]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SKuoEaReww

Apart from used a lot of elbow grease

[He11cat]

You can polish them up ...
I'm sure Rally knows about that one .

I have nice brown ones .....
Hmm polishing or riding ... Polishing or ... ;)

They look nice but on my work horse ...

[Nickj]

All of the headers on all of the mosters are a stainless steel. A big plus being you don't get that classic jap flaking rust AND you can polish them relatively easily.
I've got some scotchbrite fixed on a strap, drag it backwards and forwards with some mild abrasive/chrome/ali cleaner and the pipes are shiney.....
For a while anyway.

So the answer is mostly elbow grease to start with then wipe clean and repolish when needed.

It's a lot of effort initially but as with he11cat I'd rather be out using the bike

[Hellboydce]

I have mine in bits at mo waiting for some parts so I'm finding jobs, you think autosol metal polish would be upto the job along with the scotchbrite?

[He11cat]

Maguires metal polish is one of the best for a good depth of shine .
Better then Auto sol :)

Hellboy wicked btw!

[Dukedesmo]

I mirror polished mine, you could literally see your face in them. After 10 minutes of running they had all the colours of the rainbow in them.

[He11cat]

I'd like the rainbow coloured look .
How many hours did it take?

[Dukedesmo]

How many hours did it take?

What, the polishing or the discolouration afterwards?

Polishing, if starting from the normal 'brown' takes ages and is a horrible dirty job - took me a few days to get mine right but that was on & off as I wouldn't want to do it all day.

The full rainbow effect (as per attached pic) probably took less than an hour to fully develop...

http://www.ducati.ms/gallery/files/9/3/7/0/916_m900.jpg

:)

[utopia]

For me, the best bit about polished stainless pipes is the lovely champagne colour that they then develop.
Mine are polished, but once you've done it once they pretty much stay that way with very little further maintenance, so well worth doing in my opinion.
For a quick job on an old brown set, a rotary wire brush in yer electric drill will make loads of difference without a great deal of scratching, and certainly nothing that subsequent polishing won't remove.
Tbh, if you have stainless pipes I can't really see the point of not polishing them ....it makes things so much easier as the dirt just slides off the shiny surface.

[Hellboydce]

What polishes did you use? Maguiars, autosol?

[utopia]

I used autosol, as that's what I'm used too, but if memory serves I also used some light oil to loosen it up a bit.
But its not about the polish really ...that's just the final stage.
Start too early with the polish and you'll be at it for days.
On both the monster and my dominator, I started with a long length of coarse cloth emery, and the rotary wire brush (a pointy one is handy for getting in the nooks and crannies ...I'd recommend a look in your local pound shop)
I think I even had a file on some areas of the dommie pipes, where they had years of pitting to remove.
Then finer emery and wet 'n dry, before getting out the polish.
Nick's scheme with scotchbrite on a strap, with solvol sounds like a very sensible and effective method.
It would be worth buying some webbing strap material for the job, even if just for the polish, without the scotchbrite ....I actually use what I believe are old judo belts, left behind by a previous tenant at my house.
But don't think "polish" think "abrasives", otherwise you'll be at it all summer.
If I were to try it with just the polish, I think I might mix it with sand to start with ....:eek:

[Gilps]

I've just cleaned up mine on the 900ss that I'm restoring. I converted a bench grinder that I had lying around at work into a polisher. You can pick them up for 50 quid new, less second hand. Takes 10 minutes to convert it- cost 6 quid for a spindle to allow a polishing wheel to be fitted. Then 4 quid for a scotchbrite wheel. The whole thing took less than an hour and I was really pleased with the finish. Its satin rather than mirrored which is what I wanted but they look great. I got the polishing bug then and spent 30 quid on a polishing kit, with all the mops and compounds. I've now polished up the cans and they look amazing.

[Dukedesmo]

To get a mirror finish is a lot of work. I start by removing the scratches, grooves, excess weld 'snots' etc with a flapwheel on a die grinder, even a file if necessary and then using polishing mops with polish of varying fineness until it looks like chrome.

It really is a horrible dirty job with the dust/polish getting everywhere especially up your nose but you only need to do it to this extreme once (probably better to take it to a professional polisher and pay them?) as once it shines, it won't deteriorate to the brown that it was previously and with a little care will stay shiny.

I use Autosol to clean them up once polished but only 'elbow grease' will get them there in the first place.

Before;

http://www.ukmonster.co.uk/monster/attachment.php?attachmentid=16993&d=1369039495

After;

http://www.ukmonster.co.uk/monster/attachment.php?attachmentid=16994&d=1369039506

[Hellboydce]

Have ordered myself a dremel 4000 off amazon which comes with a million (slight exaggeration) attachments, so will give it a go with that

[Wildfire]

Hmmm... I have an airline which polishes.....

:idea:

[Dukedesmo]

Have ordered myself a dremel 4000 off amazon which comes with a million (slight exaggeration) attachments, so will give it a go with that

Going to take you a long time with a dremel... :worried:

[Gilps]

Have ordered myself a dremel 4000 off amazon which comes with a million (slight exaggeration) attachments, so will give it a go with that

I've got a Dremel too and I can confidently say you will be there forever trying to polish pipes with one. They're just not man enough or big enough for the job. You could possibly get away with an electric drill with either the drill or the pipes clamped in a vice. I hardly ever use my dremel. It's probably the most overrated tool in my garage.

[Hellboydce]

Crap........

[Dukedesmo]

You could possibly get away with an electric drill with either the drill or the pipes clamped in a vice.

It'll probably overheat unless you only do short stints.

I use an old-fashioned pillar drill on the highest speed as I find it easier to hold the pipes (at chest level) and move them around the polishing mop rather than using a dedicated polisher, where you need to clamp the pipes in a vice (not easy without scratching them).

This drill has a 1hp motor and still gets warm and will occasionally trip the thermal overload as polishing creates a lot of friction/drag.

[gary tompkins]

Or you can leave them dirty like I do, or at best manage a token wire brushing once in a while

I really can't be arsed.. and even if I was would rather pay someone to do it for me

[Gilps]

Crap........

Sorry, didn't want to cause concern over the Dremel. They're not a bad bit of kit if you use them for what they were intended for, which is a bit of a light use home hobby type of thing, like model making or jewellery making. I paid £100 for mine and have used it only a couple of times as each time I try to use it I end up using a larger cordless drill. They're very good at getting in to small spaces as some of the bits and tools are quite small, and are great where fine detailing needs doing. I just wouldn't buy one just to polish pipes with.

[Gilps]

Or you can leave them dirty like I do, or at best manage a token wire brushing once in a while

I really can't be arsed.. and even if I was would rather pay someone to do it for me

There's a guy on the Ducatiforum offering a service to do them for you for £50. Got to be a bargain.

[Hellboydce]

Got dremel out of box, turned it on and it started to smoke anyways, so back to amazon for you, probably won't replace it, trouble I have no room for bench or vice, bike is kept in utility, nice and warm, dry and clean but very little room to manoeuvre and get any work done on it

[Hellboydce]

Glips, found that guy on ducati forum, one question, is it a pain or would it be relatively easy to get the pipes off my 696?

[Dirty]

Glips, found that guy on ducati forum, one question, is it a pain or would it be relatively easy to get the pipes off my 696?

Any chance of a link or posting his contact details here?

[Hellboydce]

His name on ducatiforum uk is motojohn, you can probably do a search, i joined and sent him a pm, he told me he will do jobs for members of that site

[NewMon]

Life is too short (at my age anyway) to be polishing the exhausts. Maybe when I strip the whole bike down for the engine repaint, I'll send the pipes away to be done. I don't want them too shiny though, it takes away from the main body of the bike. Exhausts seem to be the part of a Monster that never goes wrong, so I just leave them be....

[Dirty]

Thanks Hellboydce