Has anyone polished their own aluminum heads?

[jhaymon]

i use aluma-brite to clean, smooth out the surface with steel wool, then a buffing pad with jewelers rouge to bring em to a shine. the alumabrite is the a much stronger version of the eagle one aluminum cleaner you can get at most boat supply stores and i get my buffing pads from the paint store. they just mount on any drill, but make sure your drill can obtain at least 2200 rpms. then just put a good clear on em if you want. putting clear on polished aluminum dulls it just a bit, but it will protect it from staining and pitting.

if you have rough cast aluminum your going to have to do some grinding. go down to sears, lowes, harbor freight or some place like that and get you some rotary files,a good set of hand files, and some various finer grit papers(start with 600grit and working down to 1000grit).

take your time and they'll glow like they were plated. i charge allot to polish aluminum, not because it's hard, but because it so time consuming.