Ok, I had a little spare time on my hands and thought I should do something usefull  , so I decided to make this UGLY old jc bowl look a little better before the pump goes to JBP for a bit of freshening  .

 Before (nasty)


 Took some 80 grit on the sander and striped the old layers of paint/whatever off of it and smoothed out the shape of the bowl.  It had some nasty flat spots and other problems that would not have looked good polished.


 Then once the shape was right I started working my way up to finer and finer sand paper. I forget what grit this was but I worked my way all the way up to 1500 wet


 First polish  .  This is how it will stay until its back from Tom / Josh and in a boat, than I'll do any touch ups needed and finish polish it.

wow what a difference, that looks fantastic,  out of curiosity how long did it take start to finish

It took me 3 nights, but I was a little lazy about it, someone could probably do it in less time than that if you tried  .  Power tools, gota love them .

That really looks good.  What kind of sander did you use?

That looks real good Jeff . I have a polished bowl and will never do it again though . Let us know what kind of work it takes to keep it lookin good .

-beerjet-

Maybe a clear powder coat would work, but I don't know that there's a shinny enough clear out there for that.  There is a chrome PC that looks damn good.

Thats how mine looks now 2sav. I'll agree that the polished bowls need to be protected imediately . Otherwise , it PC for me . I already had one PC ,and after a quik wipe down it looks brand new . The polished stuff looks crazy killer though....... 

-beerjet-

The problem with aluminum (and most all other metals) is that it (or they) starts to oxidize within 10 minutes of the polish job being completed.  I suggest that, at the least, as soon as you have the bowl polished you wash it in very warm water and Dawn dish soap, then blow dry to get all the water off and at least spray some clear gloss lacquer over the entire surface.

Thanks for the tip, I'll try that.  Ive got lots of parts to practice with  .

You try first and let me know how it comes out 

you got it

Clear powder coat works......or the ultimate is after ya get it polished have it electoless nickle plated.
 It is incredibly hard and looks like chrome. Alot charge is aroud 100 bucks or so.

where can you get this nickle plate done ?

Any chrome/bumper shop

will that be ok for the inside of the bowl

cool ill look into it thanks