She's got 'UGE tracts of aluminum! (Surface prep)

Working on the below PITA.  I've removed the crappy hunting motif, but now I have a large amount of aluminum sheet with uneven surface finish.  

What's the easy button to get a uniform, natural aluminum, finish?

A case of elbow grease should be in your shopping cart.

You may be able to get what you want with some of the open abrasive pads (like scotch-brite on a disc), but I would suggest you test it first to see if that is the look you want. I t may show swirls. The other power option is sandpaper on an orbital sander, but there appear to be a few fasteners that will cause headaches. Final answer is probably hand work, thus the elbow grease mentioned above.

Gentle media blasting

You're not too far from these people:

https://www.theblastmasters.com/

They do all our project cars for Classic Motorsports; tell them Tom from GRM sent you over and they'll take care of you.

What you need is some acid, man.

And some of this stuff: https://www.amazon.com/Aurora-Marine-ALUMABRITE-CBX-Gallon/dp/B08MMH8Z5D/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=alumabrite&qid=1619720171&sr=8-5

There has to be a wish quality level version of this by now

https://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-contour-sct.html

Rotating scotch Brite pad. What they use to put the grain back on a DeLorean 

Trent said:

There has to be a wish quality level version of this by now

 

https://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-contour-sct.html

 

Rotating scotch Brite pad. What they use to put the grain back on a DeLorean 

Amazon suggests this: https://www.amazon.com/Handheld-Burnishing-Stainless-Polishing-Auxiliary/dp/B08G8BZC7V/ref=pd_sbs_3?pd_rd_w=P3tZB&pf_rd_p=2419a049-62bf-452e-b0d0-ca5b7e35a7b4&pf_rd_r=YNFV3H2BRTSW34EAPBRS&pd_rd_r=57850789-e649-4f78-aa9e-a1217a46dc3b&pd_rd_wg=0gC6t&pd_rd_i=B08G8BZC7V&psc=1&tag=knoa-20

A random-orbit "DA" sander will give you a uniform swirly finish.  Finer finish just takes finer grits.  Lots of machinery parts are finished that way.

Trent said:

There has to be a wish quality level version of this by now

https://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-contour-sct.html

 

Rotating scotch Brite pad. What they use to put the grain back on a DeLorean 

This looks useful for other reasons.  Nice. 

TVR Scott said:

A random-orbit "DA" sander will give you a uniform swirly finish.  Finer finish just takes finer grits.  Lots of machinery parts are finished that way.

The actual finish is something I need to figure out.  I wouldn't want a mirror finish because I don't want the sun blasting into my eyes, but the fine lines are going to do that a little bit as well.  Which way would I want the lines/grain to orient in order to limit that?

Trent said:

There has to be a wish quality level version of this by now

https://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-contour-sct.html

 

Rotating scotch Brite pad. What they use to put the grain back on a DeLorean 

Man I need one of those things but the consumables are bonkers expensive and I have no idea how long they last. If you got two cars worth of stripping out of it all in. If its swap it out every two panels then no. 

TVR Scott said:

A random-orbit "DA" sander will give you a uniform swirly finish.  Finer finish just takes finer grits.  Lots of machinery parts are finished that way.

Wanted to add this is how I would do it. you can cut red and green 3m pads to fit or use the 80 grit mesh that they use for drywal and you would be done in a few hours with a decent brushed finish. With a 320 grit follow it would look really good. then protect it with what ever you want. 

FYI that is how I used to clean the bottoms of pots that were burned on the bottom or top beyond recognition. Works great stripping grease baked into cake trays as well. 

Scotchbrite makes a silver pad that I believe is polish only.

preach (fs) said:

Scotchbrite makes a silver pad that I believe is polish only.

I think the lightest they go is 2000 grit. I have used the 800/1000 grit to knock down shiny paint on cars tat I want to patina back after doing a rust repair

wearymicrobe said:

preach (fs) said:

Scotchbrite makes a silver pad that I believe is polish only.

I think the lightest they go is 2000 grit. I have used the 800/1000 grit to knock down shiny paint on cars tat I want to patina back after doing a rust repair

I've used red to make swirls on an aluminum tool box and love brown for hand cleaning small parts. I do not know the equivalent grits to colors though.

That gets a coat of Rustoleum in my world.  Too rough to be pretty, and if it were pretty, it would be way too shiny.  Forest green.

Alumiprep 33 and scotchbrite.

After that I would paint it with Argent Silver steel wheel paint and tell everyone it's raw aluminum.

Which way to orient grains to limit sun blasting your eyes?

Perpendicular to your polarized sunglasses, of course.