There are perks to working at Dirt Rider. One of them is getting hooked up with cool stuff. Sometimes even by accident. This is a story about Mother’s polish and car care products that I stumbled upon, you may find it interesting. Especially if you are Executive Editor Jesse Ziegler.
About a month ago I got an invite to come and see the Mother’s crew demonstrate their line of car care products, waxes, polishing creams, polishing tools, cleaners. There was a lot of stuff. But I politely declined because us Dirt Rider dudes run it a little dirty.
Well yesterday my nose got the best of me (I smelled food) so I strolled out to the kitchen where there were scraps of sandwiches strewn about. A likely sign that other editors had been here before. Since the tech center is just out the other side of the kitchen, I poked my head out to see a pack of well-fed editors huddled around some men and some really shiny car parts. I was interested and I joined in, just a little hungrier than the rest.
What I saw was a really cool display of a new sponge like thing that makes polishing aluminum really easy. I was intrigued. I’m the last guy to want to polish anything but I know a lot of readers might like to know how to bling-out their aluminum frames, wheels, swingarm or anything that could be shined.
After the demo broke up I got some tips and the product sample from the Mother’s guy and decided to try it out. On Jesse Ziegler’s bike! Yes, skip a day at the office and your bike might just fall victim to some much needed attention.
It was pretty easy. I simply applied the Mother’s Billet polish to the Mother’s Power Cone and hooked it to our Makita cordless drill. I started slowly so I didn’t slop the stuff all over the place and within just a few minutes I had a nice black/grey glaze to the top frame spar.
It took way less time and work that I thought and all I did was wipe it clean with a rag and the shine was amazing. Especially for a frame part that wasn’t exactly too shiny to begin with. The shape of the Power Cone makes it pretty easy to get it into spots and do a nice clean job on the flatter surfaces.
The best part is that polishing is addictive and it looks kind of weird if just one part is polished. I’m way against going too far with this, hence I didn’t take off the shroud or anything, so in order to finish the job, Jesse is going to have a bit of work on his hands.
If I’d had a 1000-grit sandpaper on me I would have got him started on the lower part of the frame and maybe even a spot on the swingarm. But there is always a hardware store and tomorrow for that.
So if you are looking into polishing a frame, this is the best way to finish it off and make it shine. I just wish my reflection would permanently stay there for Jesse to have to look at it all the time!