Polishing up the pipes

[GoldOxide_imp]

I'm so glad I have Chrome pipes on my EX!

At the time, I missed real chrome pipes.

STAIN-Magic helped ease the pain.

At the time, I missed real chrome pipes.

STAIN-Magic helped ease the pain.
Whats your method? Looks good.

Whats your method? Looks good.
Thanks. Since I have no patience for cleaning/polishing, I seek the shortest path.

The STAIN-Magic tube lasts a long time (still not halfway on my first tube after five years). One thing I noticed is the paste will separate while in long term storage. I recommend before opening to give it a good one minute shake. Maybe knead the tube a wee bit.

I recommend wearing the suggested protective hand and eyewear. I have caught myself the last two times not doing so. Nothing fell off me, but to each their own. I reckon the paste is acid-based.

I apply a covering coat on all stainless steel surfaces I wish to restore. It need not be lathered on. Just coat, spread around somewhat thinly with a clean, soft old cotton rag.. I let it do "its thing" for at least 15 minutes at air temperatures at least 15C and higher.

Afterwards with another clean, old cotton (new, if you wish) rag, I proceed to buffer off by hand. My technique is random. Mostly rubbing off. I may wrap the rag around the pipe and polish behind the pipe in a tug-o-war fashion, but again, I may or may not depending on how easily the tarnish is coming off. Stubborn spots get a second treatment.

After maybe 10 to 20 minutes of polishing effort, you should have silver-looking header pipes. In fact, they should look gorgeous.

To give it the "chrome shine", I follow-up with an application of hand-rubbed Peek Metal Polish. This is optional, but it does add surface protection. lol - I think it burns off on the next ride, but for some reason the shine remains. The only difference is instead of a brilliant chrome-like finish, after the first ride it is the showroom brilliant extremely light tinge gold-chrome-like finish. This is unavoidable with untreated stainless steel headers.

= = =

Now, to compare effort without using STAIN-Magic, one could actually achieve the same result with just using the optional Peek Metal Polish. Yes, you can.

But, the labour effort goes up (at least for me) by 5 to 10 times. You use a lot of Peek paste, burn through rags, and most annoyingly: Your hands, knuckles, arms (and if you are crouching), legs, back, etc. take a beating rubbing. Your mind starts to wander with thoughts like, " ... dang headers - why couldn't they have been double-walled chrome pipes ... Honda, jeez". Or maybe, " ... man, I probably should have taken the pipes off for this ... ". In addition, if the weather is hot/humid, your f-bombing goes noticeably up.

All-in-all, your mileage may vary.