Duners tunnel polishing "how to"

[FirstPlaceParts]

I repaired band instruments, for 10 to 12 years and have spent 1000's of hours polishing saxophones, tubas, trombones....

The tunnel looks very good.

You can get or order all this from a band instrument repair shop, if you have one in your town or one close try them for the wheels, and compounds.

If you are going to do a lot of polishing here is how it is done in the band instrument world. They have buffing stand made with about 6 foot bars mounted on them driven by and electric motor and mounted to the floor. The belt pulleys are mounted in the middle of the shaft. This allows a wheel to me installed on each end. One for rough cutting and the other for fine polishing. A guy could build one in their garage. If you are interested I could post some pictures. I may even know where 1 or 2 are for sale.

I polished a 6-71 blower, it took me about 40 hours of filing, sanding and polishing, wish I had pictures of it.

Thanks
Mark

 

[friscospices.com]

To cut the time down in half at least use a green bar and grate it with a cheese grater then add a little diesel fuel to it until its like puddy. Apply to aluminum then polish the fuel helps to speed up the process and comes to luster faster. A friend told me 1 hour for the tunnel ater it was cleaned up for polishing. 75$$. But same question no one answers how long does it last and does snow still stick to it?

 

[sledlvr]

Very nice work !!!! If anybody wants to practice polishing techniques , You can practice on my logging truck wheels !!!!

 

[600xc4me]

I did mine with a yellow wheel, brown and white chalk. Took about 13 hours including removing the seat, tail light, running board supports and bumper. Stripped down the way Dunatic has that raw tunnel there. Was covered in black after. Had "eye shadow" for days. Couldn't get it off. lol And as far as, how long does it last? Well I did mine early to mid winter, and it's still looking pretty good. I'll go over it again though over the summer to bring it back.

 

[christopher]

Nicely done.
That looks drop dead gorgeous!

 

[600xc4me]

Nicely done.
That looks drop dead gorgeous!

If your talking about mine, then, well, thanks boss.

 

[christopher]

Yup, I was talking about you.
I think you did a fine job on that sled.
Enough so that I am considering the same route.

Not sure yet though.
Could go with a Powdercoated tunnel or a polished one.

 

[600xc4me]

In that case thank you. It was a very long process, which could have been made faster if I has has a rougher wheel to start with. The yellow I had was the softer finish wheel, so it took a lot more work to get it to the same point. But it worked. Just takes longer.

Polished can look amazing, but so can a powder coated one. I my self would go powder coat. It's no work to keep nice, and it sheds snow very well, so if you powder coat the under side, you will have a lot less ice build up, and there for less weight.

 

[christopher]

Going to do something this summer, just not sure which route to go yet.

But both a POLISHED or a fully COLORED tunnel certainly looks Sweet.

 

[600xc4me]

Yeah that is true. I am planning to do something like this to mine.

If Mike at Van Amberg will sell me the tunnel sides, with out the wide boards, then I might buy his tunnel sides, in white, and install skins tube boards, powder coated black. If not or if he's a bit pricey then I will be going with tunnel sides from aksnowrider, same thing as what he has on his sled, but in white. Something like that on your nytro would look really nice as well.

 

[christopher]

I have a set of the Skinz Air-Boards coming powdercoated Blue.

 

[green_denali]

polishing

I used the same kit you did, heres my results, looks way better than stock.

 

[Lightning]

very nice but...

Is it possible to get an older tunnel to look that way? I suppose it is with more time invested. Like an 04 RMK.

 

[christopher]

Time to find a good rotary polisher now.

 

[christopher]

taking my turn at trying to polish my tunnel tonight.

 

[christopher]

Last night's attempt was a classic FAIL!
Time to get better polishing gear.:face-icon-small-dis

 

[green_denali]

polishing

Did you use the kit that dunatic recommends? If you didnt, I would
HIGHLY recommend it.

 

[Thunderguy BOOSTED]

i want to order but i dont know if they ship to CANADA! and i e-mailed them but they never got back? what kit should i get??? thanks

 

[green_denali]

i want to order but i dont know if they ship to CANADA! and i e-mailed them but they never got back? what kit should i get??? thanks

Yeah, I had the same problem, but instead of emailing I called the number on the website and was lucky enough to talk to somebody. I ordered the kit over the phone thinking I would recieve it in about a week or two, I ended up recieving it about 3 months later, that was weird. So yes I do understand your problem, all I can say is keep trying or get the same kit from a different metal polishing company. Using the cutting pad with the tripoli bar really did cut the haze from the metal extremely well (very noticeable difference), and then using the buffing pad with the jewelers rouge really brought out the shine even more, which I then followed up with mothers polish. When I did mine I didnt remove the bars and rear brake light assembly like dunatic did, because I dont have a rivet gun. However, doing the cutting and the polishing isnt really all that hard since the cutting pad and buffing pad is doing all the work, its just something thats time consuming more than anything, took me about 6-7 hours to do mine.

 

[Thunderguy BOOSTED]

Yeah, I had the same problem, but instead of emailing I called the number on the website and was lucky enough to talk to somebody. I ordered the kit over the phone thinking I would recieve it in about a week or two, I ended up recieving it about 3 months later, that was weird. So yes I do understand your problem, all I can say is keep trying or get the same kit from a different metal polishing company. Using the cutting pad with the tripoli bar really did cut the haze from the metal extremely well (very noticeable difference), and then using the buffing pad with the jewelers rouge really brought out the shine even more, which I then followed up with mothers polish. When I did mine I didnt remove the bars and rear brake light assembly like dunatic did, because I dont have a rivet gun. However, doing the cutting and the polishing isnt really all that hard since the cutting pad and buffing pad is doing all the work, its just something thats time consuming more than anything, took me about 6-7 hours to do mine.

WELL hey thanks for the info!! YEAH, see thats somthing id rather not go through! one thing i could do is like ship it to someone i know in the US and then just get them to send it on? the kits getting $$$ but i think judging by the pics its worth it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Im going to polish the racers edge tunnel on my T-RX1, and it should be easy cause there lots of big pieces of metal! anyways should be fun when i do get it!!