Polishing lower fork legs

If one were without a garage or place to use power tools (apartment dweller) and were to remove the forks and bring 'em inside and put some elbow grease into it what polishers and method of application
might yield some results? The forks are not pitted or corroded the surface is smooth with a tarnished look to them.

78 KZ650B

kzrider.com/forum/5-chassis/522471-fork-reconditioning

After ascending grits of sand paper to sand the lowers smooth (assuming you have also stripped the old clear coat off), you can give it a final polish with mothers mag and aluminum polish. What grit of sand paper you start with depends on their current condition. Sounds like you may be able to start at 600 grit and go to 1000, 1500 and finally 2000. Then hand polish with the mothers polish.

Thanks, both of those replies have set me clear on it. I'll probably follow KZJOE's strip/sandpaper/mother's mag method. The forks look great. Will take some work and hours for sure. Doin it!

After I polished each one, I protected it by using clear plastic food wrap to protect it until I completed installation. Then tear the plastic off once installed and a quick buff with a terri cloth. One thing to keep in mind, after polishing, do not use any silicone based wax to try to protect your shine. It will dull your hard work. The mother's polish should have some type of wax ingredient that will protect it for awhile (I believe). Then just a matter of hitting with the mother's polish anytime you wash/wax your bike. Not sure if other types of wax would dull aluminum.

My Harley had a ton of bare, polished aluminum. It's a bitch to keep up. I'd rather have a non-mirror finish with some sort of protective clear coating like the original.

I'm working on an aluminum swing arm currently. I'm using a coarse Scotch-Brite 2" scrubby pad on a right angle die grinder to take off all the paint and smooth out the welds. Next I'll use a medium pad followed by a fine one to get it smooth. Them I'll switch to brown polishing compound, followed by white compound. Makes a mirror shine with little elbow grease.
Last step will be to clear coat it with POR-15's Glisten PC, it can be applied with a brush and it's self leveling.


I did a set of wheels and the forks on my first 750 twin by hand, starting at 120 grit and ending at 2000. Never, never, never, again. :sick:

I haven't had to do anything to mine since polishing them a couple of months ago. May have used a terry cloth a couple of times for a few seconds. Still looks great. Its garage kept and haven't been out in the rain however. I'm sure the mothers has some wax ingredient that is protecting it for awhile. As for sanding, I spend a two to three hours on each fork. Progressively going to the finer grit. Not the most fun you'll ever have, but I didn't do it all at once but over the course of 4 or 5 evenings (one grit per evening) so it was not bad at all. I have washed the bike and waxed it since but didn't bother using the mothers on the forks again since they still look good. I may do so next washing just for kicks.