Ok, so i have just spent the last day and a half polishing my diamond cut starmags to a mirror finish, i took lots of photos along the way so thought i would make a guide :)

so tools/materials needed:

disposable gloves (to use with the nitromorse, its bloody strong stuff)

nitromorse (only for laquered wheels)

plastic scraping thing (use anything)

wet and dry paper: 120, 180, 240, 400, 600, 800, 1000 and 1200, you can get even more in between if you can really be bothered

alloy polishing kit, i bought this one and it did the job spot on: clicky!

high speed mains powered drill

spare time and lots of patience is the key here!

start by giving the wheel a very thorough clean and make sure it is dryed well

first step is to dab the laquered areas with the nitromorse, take care not to get it on painted sections if you have them. leave for a few minutes to work its magic

when the laquer has started to peel off i used a small plastic thing to scrape it all off as it makes the sanding step a fair bit quicker! (forgot to take pictures of this step)

once you have removed as much laquer as possible you can start with the 120 grit, the trick here is to go with the direction of the diamond cut to get the stubborn lacquer out of the crevices, then you can keep sanding until the diamond cut finish has been rubbed away (due to this it is the longest process) more time spent here will give a much better finish! keep going until you have a nice uniform finish as pictured below:

once you are happy change to the next grade up, in my case this was 180. You may not notice much difference between each grade because it will be so gradual but trust me it is worth it! keep sanding away until the finish from the previous grade has totaly gone, i cannot stress how important this is! if you do not do it properly you will have to go back a few steps when you try to start polishing becase you will have fair line scratches that polishing will not get rid off

now onto 240, same process as previous step

400 grit, you should start to see a nice dull satin finish appearing

600, i didnt take a photo as it didnt look too much different, but still dont skip it!

800 now and a definite faint reflection should be starting to appear

1000, as you get to the higher grades each step will be getting shorter as it will not need as much rubbing to get rid of the previous finish

1200, spend as much time as you can on this step as it is the finish you will be polishing (unless you can be bothered going to 1500/2000)

stage one of polishing, if you purchased the above kit you will have whats called a sissal mop which is quite harsh to remove the marks from sanding, use this with some brown compound until you have a nice dull finish all over the wheel

stage two, now move onto your white stitch mop with the blue compound, this time you should start to see a real shine appearing (makes you realise all the hard work was worth it)

i had a slightly softer white stitch mop knocking around so gave it a going over with this also

final stage, use the 'g' mop with a very small amount of blue compound until a highly polished finish is visible

i then gave mine a final going over with some autoglym metal polish to get rid of some fine surface scratches and then buffed it off with the 'g' mop again

give it a final wipe with some rim wax or similar and stand back and admire your hard work its worth those aching fingers you have now :)

Edited 7 November, 201114 yr by dubownerbilco

cool guide mate been following your thread as iv not long since aquired a mk2 loon :) kep up the good work

Edited 7 November, 201114 yr by pilky1234

Very nice. Will this tecnique work on really corroded or sand blasted wheels?

Very nice. Will this tecnique work on really corroded or sand blasted wheels?

well mine were very corroded before hand :)

and it should work fine on a shotblasted wheel but the first step will be bloody hard work!