Polishing axles

[lelandsdad]

If u buy speed axles from like Derby Worx, do u still need to sand and polish them. Can u take to much material off? I would hate to buy axles and then mess them up.

[Murph]

Polishing by Using Pastes
I usually put the axle in a dremel and take chrome polish to clean up the surfaces. Make sure you get the inside of the axle head good.
If you have some Brasso around, leverage this medium as your final polishing step. However, you should be fine with chrome polish.

It only takes about 10 to 15 seconds to clean-up one axle. Pretty simple and effective way of preparing axles.

Polishing by Using Sandpaper
If you want to use sandpaper, I would suggest starting with nothing lower than 400 grit. Very light touch on 400 grit for about 10 seconds.

Work your way up with finer grit sandpaper. You can use some car polish as your final step.

If you put wax (not polish) on your axle, do not put alcohol on the surface after the polishing procedure. You will remove the wax and increase the surface tension of the contact areas. You want to have contact areas with low surface tension!

Axle Inspection
Always inspect your axles before and after polishing. Occasionally, there might be a slight imperfection that you might have to concentrate upon when you are polishing.

Murph

[lelandsdad]

But can u take off to much material,making the tires to wobble?

[Murph]

You don't have to worry about the finer grits of sandpaper taking too much material off of the axle diameter. Just start out with 1000 grit if you are concerned. 1000 grit sandpaper is pretty forgiving.

Make sure you take a close look at the axle shaft/head interface when you are done to make sure you did a nice job!

The chrome polish is not too aggressive so you should not have any problems with that medium.

Hope this helps!
Murph

[lelandsdad]

Thanks Murph