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Landing Gear metal blemishes

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duncan:
I've been cleaning up my forks with wet & dry today, but I notice there is some dark patching on the metal (visible on the forkleg in the picture below).
I don't think it's rust, more like a staining of the metal. It's starting to come off, but who knows how deep it goes -  it's just meant to be a polish, I'd rather not start any major sanding.
Is this type of marking normal on metal tubing?

This may mean that a baremetal finish is out if I can't remove the blemishes. Also, any moisture that hits bare metal will cause rust - I assume you have to lacquer it afterwards, no question?
This frame (Quadangle) had a Reynolds sticker when new, but I think the LG forks were just plain Cr-Mo on these bikes? Thanks.



Edit>> I now know the 'blemishing' is pitting due to rust that was removed. The pits are so small it looks like a patch of differently coloured metal unless examined very closely.

Rombloke:
no....stop.
do not try to clean chrome with wet and dry.
only use wet and dry on alloy.
those forks are chrome-moly...just hit those with a bit of 0000 wire wool and peek chrome polish.
if they arent too bad just use the chrome polish

Dave

Waxintaxin:
They look like bare metal , not chrome so the original finnish would have been painted.
 to polish the metal you will need to go at it big time with a polishing wheel. You will have to laquer them if leaving them bare metal as it will rust quick time. you are always going to struggle polishing bare metal .

Rich :)

Rombloke:
yep sorry, didnt even see the picture, they do look like bare metal....rub away fella

lmao

Dave

duncan:
Thanks for the warning Rombloke but don't worry, they're just bare metal. They were originally painted.
I've seen how rust can attack, I cleaned them up (but not to a real shine) previously, and left them in a spare room for a few months - when I retrieved them today they were covered in light surface rust.
Just the moisture in the air must have caused it! There was a tumbledrier in the room - probably the culprit.

I'm now thinking that a powdercoat will be the better option. This would need a rough keying surface?
Is shotblasting recommended prior to coating? If so then I may as well stop where I am until I get that done.

Otherwise I'm happy to prepare it myself using the wet & dry, but are you saying this is not a good thing? I may risk taking off too much surfacemetal?
So far it's just been a polish with very fine wet & dry, but I'm happy to go with advice on this one.

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