BSA Owners' Club Forum

The BSA Workshop => Twins => Topic started by: Ken Oaff on 15 March, 2018, 14:55:13

Title: Conical Rear Backing Plate
Post by: Ken Oaff on 15 March, 2018, 14:55:13
Is there any easy way of stripping the original silver paint off the alloy backing plate on a conical rear hub

Want to polish this to match the hub which is in the process of being polished

Tried Niromors it wouldn't touch the silver paint
Title: Re: Conical Rear Backing Plate
Post by: AWJDThumper on 15 March, 2018, 17:29:22
I normally use a mouse with increasingly finer grades of paper to prepare an alloy surface before starting to polish it properly on a polishing wheel. The same can be done by hand with wet & dry paper but it's a lot more work. Removing the old paint is a fairly straightforward part of this approach using the mouse. The biggest difficulty in polishing is normally removing the scratches or dings in the metal surface which takes much more effort and sanding than removing paint.
Title: Re: Conical Rear Backing Plate
Post by: A10 JWO on 15 March, 2018, 17:59:04
What about soft aqua or media blasting, my bloke charges by the minute. Ten minute job.
Title: Re: Conical Rear Backing Plate
Post by: AWJDThumper on 15 March, 2018, 18:52:38
You have to remember that BSA painted the conical hubs because this was far cheaper than polishing them. This means that the metal surface under the paint is not that smooth and will require a reasonably involved polishing process to get it to shine, especially if there are any scratches or other damage. Sanding off the paint as part of the polishing process is fairly straightforward.
Title: Re: Conical Rear Backing Plate
Post by: Ken Oaff on 16 March, 2018, 07:41:46
thanks for all the replies

looks like hand sanding will be the way forward

and less the painted surface was cheaper than polishing.............
Title: Re: Conical Rear Backing Plate
Post by: AWJDThumper on 16 March, 2018, 07:58:48
It's very hard work doing the sanding by hand and it's best in my experience to do the sanding using a rotary sander or mouse.