Category Archives: HOW TO GUIDES

May 25, 2024

How to Polish Aluminium Alloy Wheels

Polishing alloy wheels

To get the best results use our metal polishes to clean your aluminium, alloy & chrome wheels. Briliant Metal Polishes do not contain Ammonia, anhydrous chemicals or acids because these will prematurely age metals, cause tarnishing and oxidisation. They are used by some manufacturers to attack oxidisation and create a short-lasting shine – only lasting for a week or two, then the chemicals which cut away the oxidization to create the shine, continue to act, often etching into the metals. Briliant Metal Polishes avoid this problem by not using ammoniates or anhydrous products.

For best results, remove the alloy wheels & chrome wheels before commencing polishing, this will give you best access to the alloy wheels ensuring that you can see and reach every part of the wheel. Remove all road grime and dirt to prepare your alloy wheels for polishing. Make sure the wheels are completely clean and dry. You need to clean between every stage, so an abundant supply of clean terry cloth is necessary. If the surface of the wheel is pitted then this can be cleaned up using 400 grit wet and dry paper. Never sand aluminium with anything coarser than 180 grit. The scratches are too deep.
Test your surface first. Go to one of the worst areas and try out a 600 grit, then a 400, and so on, to ensure that you only use an abrasive as coarse as is necessary.

After a 400 grit (if that is the stage you choose to begin with) you need to go to a 600, Make sure that you remove all signs of the previous cut each time. Where possible this is best achieved by going at 90° to the previous cut. If you can see scratches now you will definitely see them when you are finished. Although it is possible to machine polish alloy wheels, excellent results can be obtained by the home DIY polisher without access to these specialist tools.
Hand polishing alloy wheels can be a rewarding and satisfying pastime if the simple instructions are followed.

Polishing Aluminium by hand

After initial wet and dry preparation, then the following 3 stage process can be used to produce a Briliant shine, utilising the following products in each of the stages:

Stage 1: Briliant Metal Restorer
Stage 2: Briliant Aluminium & Stainless Steel Polish
Stage 3: Briliant Premium Metal Polish & Micro Fibre Polishing Cloth

Using Briliant Metal Restorer you can remove all signs of the previous wet and dry preparation quickly, work it in well using a soft cloth, such as an old soft cotton teeshirt. You will get beautiful results if you have done your preparation properly, and a mirror will begin to show. Liquid polishes like ours tend to perform better than pastes because they allow you to use the oxidisation that you remove as an abrasive. This means not rolling or turning your applicator cloth as the residue appears, but rubbing it in and making the residue work for you.

The oxidisation you release will be no coarser than the abrasive. Hand polishing should be smooth and directionally consistent. If places are hard to get into by all means employ a tooth brush, but wrap the bristles with cloth or they’ll scratch your finish. Another trick for getting into tight areas is to trim down an iced lollipop stick and wrap that with soft cloth. Make sure you tear the labels off of your cloths (if using old teeshirts) as they can scratch like you wouldn’t believe. It is easiest to do about a quarter of the wheel at a time, and this normally gets the best results. So don’t go crazy and do it all in one hit (you’ll probably get hazy bits if you do).

When you are happy with the results and have an even shine over the whole wheel, stage 2 is to continue polishing with our Aluminium & Stainless polish metal polish which will quickly increase the intensity of the shine on the wheel, again use soft cotton cloth to apply and buff the alloy wheels.

Stage 3 finishes the process by using our Premium Metal Polish to acheive the deepest possible shine. Then finish polishing with a micro fibre polishing cloth or micro fiber mop this will leave you with gleaming mirror finish alloy wheels….. polishing aluminium & alloy wheels has never been easier, nor has the shine ever lasted so long.

May 13, 2024

How To Clean Gold

The most important thing about preserving antiques and precious metals is handling, or at least the avoidance of it. Sweat is very acidic. Every time a metal is handled, unless some kind of preventative steps are taken, such as gloves or cloth, acid is transferred from the hand to the item, preserving waxes are removed and protective ions are disrupted allowing the acids to begin the action we call oxidization.The oxidization process can be slowed down significantly by using our Gold & Silver metal polish which contains super fine abrasives and a microcrystalline synthetic wax.

Protective IONS!? Yes, that’s right, protective ions. When we polish gold & silver, the surface of the metal is smoothed directionally, making the ions on the surface line up like soldiers. This not only helps conceal minuscule imperfections in the surface, but also helps for a barrier that the acids and salts have to penetrate and disrupt for the oxidation to occur. We can avoid this enormously by not handling anymore than is necessary. LOOK and ADMIRE, but don’t touch. Remember this when you are finished with your handiwork restoring the gold piece to its former glory.

Also, NOT all compounds are jeweler’s rouge, as many people seem to believe. jeweler’s rouge is a specific grade and made with ferric oxide, which gives it the red color. Rouge, being French for ‘red’, means it makes no sense to have green or white compound and call it rouge. If you ventured into Antwerp, the gold dealers capital of the world and offer a Jeweler a bar of green or white rouge, you would be laughed out of town.

Gold absorbs much of the ferric oxide when buffed and comes up a bold, bright gold color, if you use a white or green compound it will absorb the dye. Who wants green gold?

English Custom Polishing manufactures a liquid rouge called Briliant Gold & Silver Polish this is made from only the finest Ferric oxide combined with a synthetic wax and ph neutral ingredients, so it can be used to polish and protect all the fine metals that you might have in your antique collection.

Gold should be handled the least of all metals, just because of its value, and its softness. It should NEVER be cleaned with abrasives, unless it is absolutely necessary. This is when you need Briliant Jewelers Rouge.

We use only one preserving wax to protect precious pieces, RENAISSANCE WAX. Unless there is need to physically polish the surface, Renaissance will remove grime and leave a stable protective coating that lasts years. This wax is pH Neutral, a microcrystaline synthetic wax, developed by the BRITISH MUSEUM and now in use at the SMITHSONIAN, the ROYAL ALBERT MUSEUM and most Major museums.

Apr 20, 2024

How to polish chrome

Chrome polish is often used on hot surfaces and in hot environments and most metal polishes will go grey when heated. If the metal polish has regular waxes, or enhancers in it, then this polish will probably dull as soon as the temperature of the item exceeds 180° F. which is the melting point of Carnauba on chrome exhaust systems, stainless steel exhausts and titanium exhaust systems. It should never be necessary to wax chrome as waxes can make chrome hazy and the beauty of chrome needs to shine through……. so you need to use a chrome cleaner that does the job properly.

If your chrome has little blisters on the surface it’s probably due for re plating. Another sign that the chrome is deteriorating is little gold flecks appearing in the sublayer. This is the nickel breaking up beneath the chrome to reveal the copper base layer.

Polishing and cleaning chrome and custom chrome can be both therapeutic and rewarding especially when you are using a good quality chrome polish. Many custom, classic, modern motorcycles and cars have chrome which should be looked after properly and the best way to do this is to use a recognized chrome polishing product, that cleans effectiently and protects chrome surfaces.

Nickel is often used under the hood of older vehicles too. Nickel has something a little different to chrome – when polished properly the yellow tint of nickel makes it blaze in the sun! Nickel is also regaining favor in the automotive industry, basically because modern nickels are being combined with phosphorous and cobalt to produce harder finishes and many custom car & motorcycle accessories that look like chrome are actually nickel alloys.

About Our Chrome Polish

When your chrome is new or as new chrome metal surfaces should be polished with the finest abrasives possible, or it will show scratches. Badly burned and blued exhaust pipes should be polished with a harsher cutting product like our Briliant Metal Polish and restorer to get it back into shape and remove the bluing and then it should be polished with a fine polish, we recommend our Hot Chrome Environment Polish to really bring up chrome surfaces to a beautiful lustre. However, with chrome bumpers, nose Cones and grilles, they are often dull due to pitting from road grit. Pitting can often be removed by hand, but a professional buffing machine together with our chrome polish will restore these chrome surfaces back to beautiful condition.

Our chrome polish is a liquid and offers significant advantages over ” tubes of polishing pastes ” these tubes of polish dry out, get trodden on and contents wasted and they are often very abrasive, leave white marks and scratches on fine chrome which over a longer period can even remove your chrome.

Briliant chrome polish is easy to use, cleans a larger surface area than other polishes and does not leave white marks or residue behind and will polish out scratches that most polishing pastes leave behind. As our customers can testify the depth of shine and longevity of our chrome polish is almost legendary amongst car & motorcycle enthusiasts.

How to use our Chrome Cleaner

To get the best results from our chrome polish use a good quality polishing cloth, we use lint free clothes ourselves which we also sell, these cloths provide outstanding cleaning performance and can be washed and re used many, many times. You only need a small drop of Briliant chrome polish to achieve briliant results and our customers willingly testify to the fact that this chrome polish goes a very long way. When polishing chrome it’s always best to polish a small area at a time which you can leave to dry or wipe off when you are ready. Many of our customers who use polishing mops, simply apply the metal polish to the area to be polished and leave to dry or then apply the mop to this area and then the mop soaks up the polish and goes EVEN further than polishing by hand.

Once you are happy with the briliant results you have achieved,  apply a light water mist ( ultra fine spray ) to your chrome and finish buffing with a good quality micro fiber cloth / micro fiber polishing pad. This seals both metals and waxes and helps reduce water stains from rain and condensation.

Who Benefits from our Chrome Polish

Many customers belong to car & motorcycle clubs of one description or another and when a club member finds an exceptional briliant chrome polishing product like ours they recommend this to fellow members, relatives and information about our polish is added to their club forums to tell others of their good experience with Briliant polishing products. Not many museum’s ever recommend a polishing product and that’s why we are truly unique as briliant polishes are used to protect classic vehicles in such diverse places as The National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, National Railway Museum,York, Nick gale custom motorcycles, Hall & Hall Historic racing, Rolls Royce owners club, Honda Goldwing owners club, Harley Davidson owners club see testimonial page. To get the most benefit from any metal polish one has to look at ease of use, depth and longevity of shine and value for money, when all of these variables are taken into account the Briliant chrome polish is efficient, cost effective, achieves a briliant shine and is unrivalled as the chrome polish of choice throughout the polishing world.