[Pretender]

Hi, folks! Real rookie here. I am about to start polishing a pair of cast aluminum motorcycle wheels, and coulld use a bit of advice from the gurus.

The wheels are 18 years old, and have some sort of black/dark gray stains on them (probably from water, I'd guess). There are also some small pits on the outside of them in the area where the tire sealts. I'd like to remove them if it can be done without damaging the integrity of the wheels.

These particular wheels are often described as an Aztec Sun pattern, having x-shaped 'spokes' around a solid hub. Originally, the wheels had a lightly polished (very lightly) rim , and a similar light polish on the face only of the spokes. The face of the spokes is about 1/4" wide, and need to be polished. This presents a couple of problems, since the rest of the wheels (inside of the rim and inner surface of the spokes) is silver-gray powder coated, which I'd like to preserve because it looks cool, and it's original. The powder coating is in perfect condition. To perhaps better explain it, if you think of the wheels laying down, the horizontal surfaces are polished, and the vertical surfaces are powder coated.

What I need advice on is how to best polish the narrow ends of the spokes without rounding the edges. I assume I'll need something quite firm so that tthe wheel/bob/whatever doesn't press down into the space between the spokes and damage the powder coat.

Another problem area is (again thinking of the wheel laying down) the 1/2" wide vertical band that constitutes the inner diameter of the bead sealing area. Immediately under this band is powdercoat again, so I can't touch that.

What I'm looking for is some idea what tools would be appropriate for this job. I ordered what seemed like an appropriate assortment of felt bobs, but they seem to be way too hard, and don't pick up compound well when spun with a drill or a die grinder. I'm looking for a flex shaft I can hook to my bench polisher, as I'm sure that would work better overall to turn whatever I need to use to polish with.

Sorry for the length of this post! Sure wish I could post a picture, it'd make things a whole lot clearer. And my apology for spelling errors... I type very poorly.