RJ CB650 wrote:I know the generic answer is: "google" on some forums, but I am extremely interested in knowing this process. I have mucho aluminum that I would love to refurbish. My nighthawk, origin of my user name especially is a bike that I am focusing on refurbish over restore as sort of a sentimental bit. The ability to just clean without powdercoating and all that stuff would be fantastic and sure able to be applied to other bikes.
It's frankly amazing. Process can vary a little bit depending on the part.
1. Inspect it, look for flaws, dings, ferrous metal parts that need to be removed or masked. It's a good idea to plug passages and threads, although the bead does rinse off if you get right after it, that's just considered good practice. Somebearing surfaces might ought to be masked, but some guys do not.
2. Degrease it if it's gnarly - I have a parts washer and a big commercial kitchen sink for pre-clean and rinse-off.
3. Preblast if the oxide is very heavy - that's with glass beads in the Trinco. Takes off the heavy alu oxide, but you have to go gently on aluminum.
4. Wetblast.
5. Rinse-off inside the blaster and again in the big sink.
6. Blast it dry with compressed air, then immediately spray/swab any ferrous parts/inserts with WD-40
More results from some experimentation yesterday:
I had hand-cleaned and finished a pair of fork legs, had called them 'done', would have rebuilt and installed them. I used abrasives and then finished them with grey Scotchbright and WD40 to restore the lines you customarily see on these, then polished them with Autosol.
I took the pair, blasted one part, left the other one alone.
Blasted part is on the left in these photos:
Blasted parts on the RIGHT in these:
The blasted part is so uniform it looks painted, but hitting the part with Autosol or similar metal polish brings up more shine and darkens it a skosh. In some cases I think the part might need some additional hand finishing or polish to look
just right, but its a hellofa good starting point to be spotless and uniform and have all the oxidation layer gone first. But in fact many folks will say, "Yipee" and bolt them up as is, and be delighted. They're definitely good to go with zero additional finishing on everything rough-cast.
. 
Finally relocated the unit outside into a shed and ran lines inside. 
