Polished aluminum hood on the Mark

No problem! Its about time I did it. ;) I've been meaning to, just.... I be lazy.

"Bout damn time you opened a thread. I've already seen the pics on fb. Gonna tell you the same thing I told you there... SICK! Love it. Now go do the rest of the car like those rich ppl in Dubai.

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A for effort. That turned out great. I would like to mount one on my black one and see how it looks. I just sold a hood a few days ago too. lol
 
"Bout damn time you opened a thread. I've already seen the pics on fb. Gonna tell you the same thing I told you there... SICK! Love it. Now go do the rest of the car like those rich ppl in Dubai.

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thats actually a paint, i forget how many stages. west coast customs did an audi r8 like it last year. it looks killer, but for a garage car once a year driving. a couple trips down 95 your all done
 
Those chromed cars are a terrible traffic hazard. Your hood looks pretty awesome, do you have anything on it besides wax to prevent corrosion? If I polished mine like that all I would see is fiberglass (or plastic?) as I have a first gen. hmmph
 
I'd try continuing your stripe onto the hood in the "brushed" look and leave the rest polished.
 
Thanks for all the comments and feedback guys.

since seeing a few comments of a bronze like finish on top of this, I have really been tossin the idea around :)

As for the most commented thing, No, not one bit does it affect me while driving. Still the most glare I get if from the dash. Which has nothing to do with the hood.
90% of the people that say something about it to me ask about the glare. I have driven the car like this since october and not a single time has it blinded or even glared at me.

Some people ask if its illegal, I ask them about the full chrome 53 foot tankers for the big rigs. As well as the whole trailers I have seen chromed. That is my argument. :)

I have also been debating on doing the deck lid like this. Its a freakin lot of work, I really enjoyed the finished product of the hood, but it was a ton of hard work. I had to water hand sand it in straight lines. Which when someone is hand sanding something you cut it in an 'X' pattern to cut it better. Not with this because I was worried about the look afterwards of all X'ed up.

This stuff is so sensitive to touch. When someone touches it it scratches super easily.

Thanks again for the compliments.
 
Those dubians ?? have way too much money! Some crazy stuff there!

I forgot to say, I would also like to finish the stripe on the hood.

Maybe get some copper/bronze tinted clear on it after I re polish it and then the stripe.
 
They do some amazing anodized designs on aluminum these days, but I doubt anyone has a tank big enough for a hood. Anodizing would help it resist scratches though, and would stop oxidation.
 
So here it is. I have had it like this for a few months now and I love it. Some might say it doesn't go with anything else on the car, that its too much bling, or they just don't like it. Well, its mine and I thoroughly enjoy it. :)

I had a spare Mark for parts and I took the hood off and spent right at 15 hours getting it to this point.

Sanded the hood to the primer with 180 then 320 through the green stuff (etch primer I guess?) then hit the aluminum with 600, went to 800 wet, 1000 wet, 1200 wet, 1500 wet, 2000 wet and finally 3000 wet. Looked reeaallly good

I buffed it with some aluminum rogue and then hit it with some mcguirs (sp) polish. I ran out and used mothers.....big mistake. It totally changed the look of the hood as if I poured milk on it.

The hood would haze no matter how clean and 'cool' I kept it. This aluminum wasn't meant to polish. So I took some ultrafine sand pad and stroked it to give it a brushed aluminum look. BIG MISTAKE again. I should have left it because when I brought it outside the next day and didn't have the fluorescent light on it the haze was gone and it didn't look as brushed as I hoped for.


enough chat, here it is. One looks like its wood, but its the reflection from a gas station ceiling. I was 15 mins away from Cruisin the Coast in Biloxi (2hrs from home) and the plug threw out the block. :-/

as long as we're opening old threads,i actually like what appears to be a reflection, but the plywood grain looks cool. do the whole car in wood!:eek:
 
Looks pretty sweet I suppose, but couldn't it blind you if light were to reflect directly to your eyes?


... well I guess that probably wouldn't happen as most cars hoods tend to slope down towards the the front, but for those cars covered in the chrome wrap, they seem the visual hazard only because of glaring. Otherwise, that looks sharp.
 
Looks pretty sweet I suppose, but couldn't it blind you if light were to reflect directly to your eyes?


... well I guess that probably wouldn't happen as most cars hoods tend to slope down towards the the front, but for those cars covered in the chrome wrap, they seem the visual hazard only because of glaring. Otherwise, that looks sharp.

Hey, Ray Charles had a chrome car and looks like it blinded him!

j/k Actually Ray did have a chromed car, but wasn't allowed to have it driven on the road because of the "blinding other drivers" issue.
 
Scallywag... ive had it like this done since october and i drive the heck out of my car all over louisiana from north to south and mississippi from south to jackson, so I spend allot of time driving at all hours of the day and have never once had any issue.

I just buffed and polished it again a couple days ago :-D

I like the anodizing idea, allot.
 
I will def be clearing it, I like the anodized look, but no way I could afford it. Once I get it to the shine I like, it'll be cleared.

There's a Mark at the junkyard I'm going to today and I would love to get the hood. The more I think about it, the more I want to do another one. I hated it, but there is a guy wanting his car to have one.
 
I am tossed with the copper/bronze look and the all aluminum. maybe i need a third hood :-D

I didn't use any air once i started water sanding because i sanded it all in one direction to avoid any 'X' patterns on the hood. i didnt want it to look all funky from the sanding in different directions so i went in one direction.
I tried x'ing it in a small area and did all the steps buffed then polished it and it looked pretty bad, so one direction i went. :cool:
 
Got some more polishing done to the hood. This is my reflection in the hood of the car. I used some stuff by Nushine called Nuvite. It is for fine grade polishing on aluminum. I can honestly say I have used lots of stuff to get aluminum to really shine and this is by far the best stuff I've used. It has to be done with a cotton rag to get the best results.

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