Polishing post car trim
 

Any tips or secrets from restoration experts short of removing trim and having professionally polished . Its mainly the chrome post trim around windows , tried the usual stuff I have like mothers metal polish . Hit it with some 0000 steel wool and polished still seems flat and oxidized. Thanks Mike

Maybe that trim is anodized like the headlight bezels ?

Anodized you can only have re-plated as its a process

Any Stainless can be sanded, and wheel polished to make show room new

Follow this process all videos and with a ton of work you'll save bucks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTxR8LB9iek

Search on youtube

please excuse the dam mopar shirt on the dude

Eric , thanks for the video . May try a small area and see how it turns out .

If it's the trim around a 'post' car, it's anodized and you can't simply polish it out. You can send it off and have it reanodized OR you can do it at home, but without reanodizing it.

First, you must take it off the car. Here it gets a little messy. You must get the anodizing off by a couple of methods. Most simply use Easy Off oven cleaner. Spray it on, let it set for a little while, then clean it off. Others use a mixture of Red Devil Lye drain cleaner and water sitting in a U shaped PVC pipe split in half and capped off. This way you can get several pieces done at one time. I know of a professional polisher that uses this method.

After cleaning off the anodizing you simply polish it as you would any other stainless trim on the car. There are numerous videos on You Tube that show how to do this.

Unless reanodized after finishing the polishing process, you must take very special care of the pieces are they will go 'milky' again fairly quickly, especially if exposed to the elements. I always put a good coat of wax on them immediately, and then wax them at least once a month. Never let rain or any water set on them for any period of time; wipe them off asap, then rewax again!

If you keep them waxed, they should look new for years. I just sold a car that had pieces done for almost 10 years that still looked new!

Thanks for the info Jerry .