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Post by bigshingle on Oct 22, 2008 8:39:05 GMT -5
JPBill, I've had good luck with Bar Keepers Friend, Mothers Mag and Aluminum Polish and Eagle One Original Never Dull. The last two are best for maintaining the shine once you have the covers smooth.
That being said, I've never wanted the aluminum to look like chrome. (Matter of taste I know, but I wish Yamaha had used less chrome on the SRs. To me, chrome looks better on bikes made in Wisconsin)
I sanded the finish (and "Yamaha") off the cases with 120 grit and an orbital sander and a Dremel tool and wirebrushes, then went to finer and finer grit and finished with jewelers paper (1200 grit?) Lots of elbow grease and patience. Play some music. I've found I polish faster with ragtime than with hip hop.
Now I give the cases a quick rub with Eagle One every so often. Whenever the tank is off I clean the head cover and give it a quick polish too. No much elbow grease expended. The compounds do most of the work.
Getting everything polished up the first time takes awhile, but maintaining the lustre is easy enough.
Superrat, I think the black cylinder is traditional — a hold-overfrom the days of cast iron. Some SRs came without the black.
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Post by solo2racr on Oct 22, 2008 11:06:43 GMT -5
Aesthetics aside, the black paint is to draw the heat out from the engine, and it will. The down side is that paint acts like an insulator and does not transfer the heat to the air very well. The best answer to this is to "paint" the parts with KG GunKote. This is a very thin finish that will need to be baked on. It gives the black finish to draw the heat out and is thin enough to not insulate much and let it transfer to the air much easier.
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Post by fuzzball on Oct 22, 2008 22:01:34 GMT -5
Aesthetics aside, the black paint is to draw the heat out from the engine, and it will. The down side is that paint acts like an insulator and does not transfer the heat to the air very well. The best answer to this is to "paint" the parts with KG GunKote. This is a very thin finish that will need to be baked on. It gives the black finish to draw the heat out and is thin enough to not insulate much and let it transfer to the air much easier. Is that why the edges of fins on some engines are left unpainted? black paint draws heat into fins, unpainted edge transfers heat to air? (Sorry for goining a bit OT) |
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Post by solo2racr on Oct 22, 2008 22:08:27 GMT -5
I wouldn't think so. The exposed area on the edges of the fins isn't enough to really make much difference. It's the whole fin area that cools. I would say that it is purely aesthetic.
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Post by bigshingle on Oct 23, 2008 8:15:19 GMT -5
Solo2racr, I've also heard that black helps disapate heat. It would be interesting to know by how much. They say even paper airplanes run cooler with black noses.   |
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Post by solo2racr on Oct 23, 2008 9:40:33 GMT -5
I would confirm this by one of two methods. The first is to research it on the web. The second would be to have two identical heat sinks. One bare aluminum and the other painted black. Place each one on a known, constant temp heat source. Place them one at a time in front of a fan with a constant CFM. Place a temp gauge a set distance down stream from the heat sink and measure the air temp. Whichever has the higher air temp will be the one that works better. One could test any color or type of coating they wanted. Black anodize, KG GunKoat, Gloss black paint, Flat black paint, etc. The results would probably be more accurate if a small wind tunnel were used with the heat sink in the center.
Come to think of it, this would be a good science project for a high school student.
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Post by bigshingle on Oct 24, 2008 9:26:26 GMT -5
You're right. A good project for the science fair.
Let's see what we can find out and maybe post something down the road.
It's counter-intuitive that color would work that way, but then like you pointed out in another post (to someone used to building campfires where adding fuel warms things up) it's counter-intuitive that a leaner mixture would burn hotter.
Still, I've heard black dissipates heat often enough that if it isn't true it's going to come as a big surprise to lots of people.
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Post by caferacercarl on Oct 26, 2008 2:57:24 GMT -5
1/ the black barrell is to give the "cast iron barrell" look, SR's had it on the H model only, [help me here Stew], and 2/ if you are going to use glass beads bill , use .4mm ones and wind your regulator back to 80psi so as not to fracture them to much, the other posts have addressedpretty well all other concerns. cheers.
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