Sanding and Polishing in Lieu of Tim's PC Changes

I figure this is going to be an important question in the near future, since many more people will be sanding the PC because of Tim's recent decision to stop post PC machining.

For my own reasons I have sanded off certain PC parts of my saber, and it looses a lot of its shine from that. Since parts come machined, they don't have much of a shine to them to begin with, and I'd like to make some parts shinier like Luke's saber in ANH. It looks good as it is, but for preference's sake I'd like to polish some parts up and undo that sanded look. How do you do that?

Polish the aluminum with progressively higher-grit sandpaper. Go from 200 to 400, and on up. Wet sanding helps. I usually finish with 800 or higher. After that, you can get a mirror finish on it by using Mother's Magnesium and Aluminum polish or something similar.

If you have trouble finding 800 or higher grit sandpaper, try looking in auto parts stores.

Very helpful! Thanks!

Does 1200 create a mirror polish? Is water required?

1200 wet-sanding gets a very nice polish. Not sure if it's exactly mirror-finish, but it'll be close. Mother's will take care of the rest. I swear by that stuff.

Just tried Mother's out...omg this stuff is addictive! It's awesome. I'm trying to restrain myself from using it on everything aluminium in my house. I did my one saber body with it and after I felt like my grubby hands weren't worthy of touching it.

Will it strip off powder coating? I'm hesitant to use it on my other one because I have coating on the main body in the grooves and I don't want to lose that.

Nah, it won't hurt powder coating. Depending on the texture of your powder coat, you may have a time washing it off.

Yeah, you see why I swear by the stuff. It's like magic. :)

You might try Abralon sanding pads. They are a foam backed mesh abrasive that goes from 180 to 4000 grit. It puts a mirror finish on wood, should do the same on aluminum. I get mine on Amazon.

I actually did get some 3000 grit sandpaper (which is actually like a foam like you're saying). It worked really well, but what really topped it off is the polishing rag I used on it. It's actually for jewelry. But it took it from not scratchy to mirror quality. I would recommend it every time.