clean and polish Diamond patterned ally

[beetlesbailey]

Hi all. I am desperately trying to clean silver spray can paint from my Globey roof with depreessing results.
Can any one give me the successful method and materials that they have used. I have tried 'ct18' truck wash followed by 'citris' paint stripper followed by polishing with an electric buff using an aluminium polish.
All this produced a shiney diamond pattern with black and /or still panited cross hatching.
I gurneyed this and some came off.
I tried hand scourers, stainless steel wool, rotary brushes (against my better judgement).
I polished with Kero with some success.
I tried some phosphoric acid as a sample which wasn't too bad but I gave it back to my mate and the replacement rust eater I used is a disaster and wont gurney off.
Perhaps I will have to replace this sheet with my spare.
All this so I can get my signage done whith a good base!
All advice will be appreciated .
Thanks
Beetles

[DC3Td]

Hi Beetles. POR15 or suchlike paint remover. A soft copper bristled brush similar to ones you`d use to clean files with to get into the impressed diamond profile should work well without scoring the surface. Followed by "Purple" brand ali polish or similar. Phosphoric Acid - can be totally lethal to skin if not wearing acid proof gloves/goggles. gordon

[humpynvan]

strip and clean discs, maybe, i had very good results with these when i used em on the humpy. the other thing i used with good sucess was a wheel thing i found at Mitre10 , it had like orange bristles made from some sort of plastic or material these were awesome for small areas such as rain gutters, door rubber grooves etc. it would be small enough to get into the indents on the diamond pattern. the good thing about both of them, is that you dont need any extra chemicals, soaking in molassas (several weeks) also removes everything from steel, but i dont know if attacks aluminium or not. would test a small area first

[urkel1965]

Hi Graham
I 'purple polished' my whole van (diamond print) using a green kitchen scourer and ended up with mixed results. Anywhere the aluminium was in good condition, it came up well. However any areas with oxidation, I ended up with the black spots also. I wasn't keen on using anything mechanical due to the aluminium sheet being fairly thin.
After days of scrubbing, I decided my van is over 50 years old (and short of re-sheeting the whole thing), this is now probably the best it will look, so I am happy with it looking a bit second-hand.
Cheers
Steve

[DC3Td]

Gday Humpynvan/Urkel.The plastic bodied discs were possibly/similar to 3M Roloc Bristle Discs as per pic below. Up to 18,000 rpm. Different colours denote softness/coarseness. You can also use fibre discs/pads (mini scourers) which attach to small air grinders. The unit i use is a swiss Suhner unit,12,000 rpm & discs/pads vary in size/softness etc.The ones in pic are 1" & 2". Careful use of either as aluminium heats very quickly which means it will score easily requiring fine wet & dry sanding followed up by polishing. As for polishing sheet ali - good old elbow grease using a buff machine with waffle pads or cotton flap pads.

gordon

[beetlesbailey]

Thanks to you all. I will recover from my depression soon and have yet another go.
What a great place for help and ideas.
Regards Beetles