Hi I’m planning on polishing one of my raw yoyos and I have polished brass and aluminum to a mirror shine before but I want to make sure there’s not some tips or tricks that can help me before I do it… I have wet and dry sandpaper from 120 to 5000 grit, aluminum cutting fluid, aluminum polish and sealant, along with a 2 inch hook and loop pad for a drill with the soft interface pad. Everything I’ve polished before was flat for the most part and of course a yoyo is curved especially the organic I’ve chosen to do. So if anyone has any pointers please feel free to give me any info you have.
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I wouldn’t use any sand paper, I would go straight to polishing compound and a cotton bit. A dremel would be perfect
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I’m using sandpaper because there’s very light scratches around it from being played over the years. I can try polishing first though and if it don’t take them out go from there…
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Do you think polishing compound will take out the scratches? They’re all very light they have no depth at all… I just didn’t want to see any lines in it once it’s polished.
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Most likely yes. But here’s the biggest thing I learned when polishing metal… you can always grit up if what your using isn’t sufficient… also be patient with scratch removal. You will spend so much more time putting scratches in and trying to remove those scratches. Always move backwards. I know it sounds counterintuitive. And aluminum is really soft in terms of metal, its relatively easy to remove scratches comparatively speaking.
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I use a drill and sandpaper/diamond paste, then mothers mag polish to get it to a mirror shine.
Find out what size axle the yo-yo has an buy a bolt in that size to chuck it in the drill. Its either 8-32 or 4mm size bolt.
I tight the bolt on one half of the yo-yo and chuck it in the drill, then start sanding polishing. I usually start at 600 grit and then to 800,1000,1500, 2000. Then 5 micro diamond paste. That’s almost mirror at that point.
If I really want mirror finish, I’ll use mothers mag polish… I found This works amazing to get aluminum to mirror finish. Just keep the yo-yo in the drill and put a little bit on a cotton rag.
Here’s a pure I just Did last night. I only Took it to 2000g. I didn’t want mirror on this one. Left side is the finished product
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Does the spinning and polishing not over tighten the bolt into the yoyo? I thought of this but was too afraid I’d strip the threads.
This one got some insane vibe when the string snapped so I decided to experiment on it. I attached it to a drill using a bolt and used two different grits of scotch brite style pads to get rid of the ano. The yoyo was unusable to start with so I wasn’t very gentle with it. I went max speed with the drill and pressed the pad quite hard against the yoyo. I had no issues with overtightening, but I would be more gentle with a functional yoyo. I then applied some generic metal polishing paste with a polishing cloth (or what ever they’re called) while the yoyo was spinning on the drill to get the shiny finish. If your yoyo is already raw I wouldn’t use sandpaper at all. Try the polishing compund first. The polishing paste worked great and quickly got rid of any obvious scratches left by the pads. The finish isn’t perfect, but with some patience and finer compunds you could get rid of the remaining marks.
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I would never go lower than 320 - 400 grit anything lower an you are asking for some crazy gouges that will take too much material off. If you have to sand out a ding or completely remove a finish, then that’s different, but you also have to be very careful not to alter the shape of the yoyo. When polishing raw though, I wouldn’t go lower than 400.
If you’re finding the sandpaper is hard to get a smooth finish at the beginning you can also use 0000 steel wool first and then cut it with your polish or wet sand up to higher grits (800 - 2000 (or higher if you prefer) ) and then use your aluminum polish. If I’m sanding I always wet sand. That slurry helps a ton when you’re at higher grits.
If your yoyo is relatively shiny to begin with, you shouldn’t really even have to bother with sanding too much. You could just start off with different stages of polishing compound and buff it to a mirror finish.
Have you looked at this…
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I’ll check it out, thanks a bunch!