I have used many different chrome polishes before on exhaust components with not much luck, particularly on badly blued pipes.
On the recommendation of a friend, I decided to try Blue Job Chrome Polish on the header pipes on my new-to-me NT700V. It's a powder and has to be mixed into a thick paste to use it, so it takes some practice to get good with it, and it also takes some elbow grease and a good amount of work to get results. But, dang, this stuff works!
Here's a picture of one header pipe that I just finished and the other not yet started.
That's the open container of the Blue Job powder in the bottom right. Yes, this one pipe took me a good 45 minutes of work to get it this nice, but the results speaks for itself. This pipe actually was worse than the one I hadn't started on yet. You can do this by buffing/polishing by hand, but it will take forever. You really need to use a small cloth buffing wheel attachment on a hand drill to get a pipe done in 30 or 40 minutes instead of a few hours.
Here's the Blue Job product advertisement on Amazon where I bought it from.
The little buffing cloth that comes with the polish is worthless, don't bother with it. Instead I used 1" wide cut strips of Scotch-Brite pads (the least abrasive blue ones) to apply the paste to the pipes and work it in by hand. Wet the Scotch-Brite pad strip, wring it out, and dip it in the Blue Job powder to pick some of it up. Then apply the paste to the pipe and rub in in by hand with the pad. Just the action of rubbing the paste in by hand with the pad actually starts the cleaning process. So go ahead and rub away for a minute or two when applying the paste. (If you have water running down the pipe, you either have your Scotch-Brite pad too wet or not enough Blue Job powder on the pad. It needs to be almost as thick as toothpaste as you work it onto the pipe.) Once the paste dried to a white haze I buffed it off with the small buffing wheel on a hand drill. (Your cloth buffing wheel needs to be damp too. Not soaking wet, but damp.) I probably repeated this process at least a dozen times to get the results you see on the finished header pipe in the picture above.
This worked so well that I decided to try to restore the header pipes on my 1983 Honda GL650I Silver Wing Interstate. The pipes on it were so blued from running lean when I got it that they were almost black. Worst pipes I've seen in some time. I thought they were toast, but Blue Job cleaned them up like new. About an hour's work on each pipe, but they came out great.
So, if you have some nasty header pipes that you think are beyond restoration, get some Blue Job and work it!
On the recommendation of a friend, I decided to try Blue Job Chrome Polish on the header pipes on my new-to-me NT700V. It's a powder and has to be mixed into a thick paste to use it, so it takes some practice to get good with it, and it also takes some elbow grease and a good amount of work to get results. But, dang, this stuff works!
Here's a picture of one header pipe that I just finished and the other not yet started.
That's the open container of the Blue Job powder in the bottom right. Yes, this one pipe took me a good 45 minutes of work to get it this nice, but the results speaks for itself. This pipe actually was worse than the one I hadn't started on yet. You can do this by buffing/polishing by hand, but it will take forever. You really need to use a small cloth buffing wheel attachment on a hand drill to get a pipe done in 30 or 40 minutes instead of a few hours.
Here's the Blue Job product advertisement on Amazon where I bought it from.
The little buffing cloth that comes with the polish is worthless, don't bother with it. Instead I used 1" wide cut strips of Scotch-Brite pads (the least abrasive blue ones) to apply the paste to the pipes and work it in by hand. Wet the Scotch-Brite pad strip, wring it out, and dip it in the Blue Job powder to pick some of it up. Then apply the paste to the pipe and rub in in by hand with the pad. Just the action of rubbing the paste in by hand with the pad actually starts the cleaning process. So go ahead and rub away for a minute or two when applying the paste. (If you have water running down the pipe, you either have your Scotch-Brite pad too wet or not enough Blue Job powder on the pad. It needs to be almost as thick as toothpaste as you work it onto the pipe.) Once the paste dried to a white haze I buffed it off with the small buffing wheel on a hand drill. (Your cloth buffing wheel needs to be damp too. Not soaking wet, but damp.) I probably repeated this process at least a dozen times to get the results you see on the finished header pipe in the picture above.
This worked so well that I decided to try to restore the header pipes on my 1983 Honda GL650I Silver Wing Interstate. The pipes on it were so blued from running lean when I got it that they were almost black. Worst pipes I've seen in some time. I thought they were toast, but Blue Job cleaned them up like new. About an hour's work on each pipe, but they came out great.
So, if you have some nasty header pipes that you think are beyond restoration, get some Blue Job and work it!
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