SDS-PAGE wrote: What do you use to buff the surface w/o scratching? Also, as an alternative, there is chrome-like spray paint. Will this cut it?
I would probably end up buying iron covers from you soon, Ned. Thanks!
Well... when I was learning how much I hated buffing and polishing, I found that decently stocked hardware stores had buffing wheels and compound. If your chassis is rough you may need multiple passes with progressively finer compound. You can stack buffing wheels to speed up the process.
Just to give you an idea of what it takes to make buffing easy, right now I'm watching Rachael Ray visit a guitar factory, and she's watching an employee buff out the finish on a guitar. The buffing wheel is a foot wide and the diameter of an extra large pizza, and the whole gizmo would fill most of a pickup truck bed.
Chrome spray paint ??? That's stuff that cheap farmers use to cover stains on their H model Farmalls, yuk. There's some interesting solutions in the realm of powder coating (there's chrome, wrinkle and hammertone), and that's something you can do at home without worrying about toxic waste products, heck, you can even recycle the overspray.