Chas

I was recovering a car from the centre of Nottingham one Saturday night when a piss head student thought it would be funny to jump in my cab & play with the steering wheel & horn. He really should've locked the doors to keep me out 'cos I dragged the toerag out & booted him in the face for his trouble. I'd have done alot more damage but I didn't think it was a fair fight. He came back about 10mins later with his gang, I jumped out of my cab with Mr.Bat, ready to take all the fukkerz on, when he sheepishly apologised for his drunken antics ! Fair restored my faith in our pisshead students it did.

If you truly want to learn polishing, maybe have need to polish lots in the future, then start assembling the equipment & have a go. Please bear in mind that pro polishing is an art that takes many years to perfect ! If you just want your heel plates to look nice n shiny, trust me that it's a lot less hassle (& cheaper) to bung 'em off to a man who can.

Does anyone else think it's a jolly good idea, to do something, anything, to get rid of the uninsured drivers/riders off our roads? I used to work the police recovery contract when they introduced the MIB database & I've lost count of the amount of money it put in my pocket. While there are LOTS of reasons an insured vehicle might not show up on the database, the police are slowly learning them all. They'll go a looong way to try to find out if an owner claims it's insured before they'll seize a vehicle, & they still have the good old HORT1 to fall back on.

My infinate wisdom tells me & anyone who asks me, to bung it all off to a profesional But that's not the answer we want is it We don't see the economics of paying a profesional £40ish to do a job we could do ourselves for nowt, that is after we've paid out £20 to £200 for the gear to do it with, do we Even then, the results are pathetic untill we've wrecked the bits we wanted polished in the first place. By the time we can polish to any kind of pro standard we've already spent more than a polisher will ever charge us on the gear & replaceing the parts that we f#cked up when practising But then anyone who's ever sat down with 5 tubes of Autosol & spent their whole weekend off work sitting on the patio whilst vigorously rubbing their wheel rims, doesn't really understand why their fingers aches so much for such pathetic results do they No, they have to justify their foolishness by fooling other people into doing pretty much the same, don't they

You could start the help/advice part by apologising for not wearing any form of eye protection. You could follow that by telling us what you know about the effects of breathing in all that compound & aluminium is having on your lungs. Please don't try this at home folks, it's not cool & it's not 'ard. I always wear wrap around specs when I'm polishing, even with massive amounts of air extraction I've still experienced discomfort from particles in my eyes Simple disposable dust masks cost about 0.05p when bought in bulk, they pays for themselves in 20yrs time when you can't climb the stairs anymore.

http://www.thepolishingshop.co.uk/acatalog/Spindles___Adaptors.html http://www.btinternet.com/~eric.guy/benchgrinder.htm They're not ideal for polishing but it's a far better way than a power drill. The optimum way is a purpose built polishing spindle with dust extraction but these are usually 3phase & command good prices even 2nd hand. To be honest the optimum way is to bung it all off & pay a proffesional, polishing is a skill aquired over several years. I've invested over £1k in spindle, mops & polishes, been doing it for over 4yrs but I still send everything but the odd job to my semi-tame polisher.

Wise words from someone who's obviously been there. I used to be a senior exec for a massive electrical goods retailer (spits) & part of my job was one of the nursemaids for the fastrack graduate managers. I have a particular dislike for anyone doing a job for the first 2 reasons. As for shit coming from both ends, it comes from above, below, front & back as well m8, it's how you handle the shit that can make or break you. Never "tell" a colleague to do something, ask them, there's a HUGE differance in that approach. If it doesn't get done, or for any other issue, take them to one side & privately ask them "what's their problem". Be firm but be fair, people respecting you is 99.9% of the job. Customers aren't always right, I'm famous in my old job for putting customers right often quite bluntly, no one's paid to be insulted, shouted at etc etc. Similarly, they aren't paying you to be ripped off, lied to, insulted etc etc. Be firm but be fair, people respecting you is 99.9% of the job. As for going for it, it's better to have tried something which you may later regret than to not try something which you will always regret. Go for it, you wouldn't be up for it if someone didn't think you worthy.

You'll get a lot more mileage from a modified bench grinder. Power drill bearings aren't built for sideways loading.

Why on earth would you want to sell the worlds 2nd best motorcycle for something made by a co' who're famous only for their wind instruments See ya Sunday (tommorow) if you can stand the pace.

My name's Chas & I'm an alcoholic. Mother calls me Michael when she's angry so please don't, it has serious psychological overtones. I'm 43 & 3/4 & when I grow up I want to be like Frank Gallagher (hic). I've been riding bikes for 30+yrs, grew up a few doors away from a famous road racer & ridden just about everything except a trike. There is no mechanical job that frightens me but I'm useless with lecktricity (& best kept away from it). I've already seen a few familiar names on here & hopefully it's neither for sale or suffers bandwidth problems when someone wants a few bits for their latest project. I'm sure we'll get along fine . . . .