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Advice on stripping/buffing/polishing aluminum.

L

loup garou

Lifer
Anyone have any experiencing refinishing aluminum? I want to purchase one of these vintage Herman Miller chairs, but as you can see in the detail photos, the "protective coating" on the arms is chipping off. This seems to be a problem with that particular model, so I think it would be better off with no protective coating at all...

My plan so far is to disassemble the chair, and hit all the aluminum surfaces with a fine wire brush drill bit to remove the coating (I'm assuming it's plastic; waiting to hear back from the seller). This will no doubt leave a pretty ugly, scratched up finish...what should I use to buff it out and polish it? I was thinking an orbital sander with very fine grit paper, then a buffer with metal polish.

Any suggestions? I'd love to buy a more beat up chair off of ebay for ~$200 and have a project for a weekend than drop $500 for a refurbished one or $900 for a new one from some trendy Manhattan modern furniture store...
 
First you will have to remove any surface materials like you mentioned. Then you will have to examine the surface for scratches and make a determination on what grit sand paper you will have to start with. 100 grit if it has very deep scratches, or 220 if they are fairly minor. Do the whole surface in successively higher grits, 220, 400, 600, 1000, 1500 grit. It is important that you take out ALL scratches that each grit can, because if you go up to a higher grit, you may not be able to remove those scratches and you will have to go back down a grit again! Also, at higher grits if you see dark areas, you must sand them out as well because they will show up in final product.
Once you are done sanding, you have to buff. You could use Mother?s aluminum polish and get a decent shine, but if you want a chrome like finish, go to Sears and get aluminum buffing compound. There will be two grades, probably silver and brown, use them successively like the sandpaper. You will need a very powerful drill, or an air tool, attached to a cloth buffing wheel to use the compounds. This will be very hard work by the way, depending on the size of the chair, it could take 20-40 hrs to do all of this. But if you take your time and do it right, you will be rewarded with a AWESOME shine. If this sounds like too much work to do, you can look into having a metal polisher in your area do it, but be prepared to shell out some serious cash.
 
Awesome BadgerFan, thanks so much for the tips. I have access to a compressor and various air tools on the weekends, so I'll probably take the route you've explained. If I were to go the professional metal polisher route, I'd probably just buy an already refurbished chair as the cost would probably be comparable. Thanks again!
 
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