Refinishing some Campag cranks

Iamnot Wiggins

I've just bought a Campag chainset of eBay for the winter bike and the cranks have seen better days (God only knows what the original owners bike is like!). Still, it was very cheap.

Anyway, I'd like to polish the cranks up & re-lacquer to protect and in doing so, remove all the blemishes and graphics etc. Where do I start as I have never done anything like this before? Has anybody done something similar that could perhaps offer some info?

I did look at having it done professionally but it'd be cheaper to buy a new chainset!

freezing77

http://www.lfgss.com/thread6104.html

pinno

These are my Chorus cranks sthat I polished some years ago.

You need:
Some very fine steel wool
Cheap auto polish for chrome - the cheapstuff is slightly abrasive, whereas the expensive stuff isn't and you need the abrasive qualities
2000 wet and dry paper.
Brasso and
A whole heap of rags. Linen (old pair of jeans) material is best. and soft yellow dusters for the final buff.

You are basically going to come down the grades of abrasion from slightly abrasive to very fine abrasion:

Drink 5 cans of red bull and two espressos and eat a bumper 3 for 1 packet of mars bars.

Fold your wet and dry sheet in half and cut it in two.
Rub the two halves together on a flat surface. This halves the grade to a 4000. Don't be tempted to use it dry or you will spend hours taking out the tiny scratches.Soak them in water until plyable. 'Sand' the cranks with the wet and dry unitl all blemmishes and oxidisation has gone (Thus bit takes a lot of time).

Use some chrome auto polish and some fine steel wool and rub like a mad man on speed. Then get a cloth and use the chrome cleaner to slowly bring the cranks to a shine.

Once shiny, use brasso to really finish it off.

I would not lacquer them. You would have to finsih them in the most pristine and dryest of conditions to get a good lacquer coat as well as baking them in the oven at 60 deg centigrade.
The sheen can be maintained quite easilly with expensive chrome polish or brasso.

Have fun and don't be afraid.