Just a year of road grime, based on your location, can be extremely corrosive – as you may have noticed with your market alloy wheels which need yearly attention. Even though your bars are for protection, it doesn’t mean you have to muddy up the classic look of your bike with lackluster bars from a few years of wear and tear. We have a simple tutorial on how to refurbish your old silver stainless steel crash bars to put them back into tip top shape.

What you’ll need:
-    Painters tape (blue scotch) or any tape
-    Scotch Brite Hand Pads- fine grade aluminum oxide
-    Pair of Gloves (nitril or any kind of work glove just to keep the aluminum dust off your hands)
-    Cardboard // newspaper// something to put under the bars while your working to avoid further scratches.

1.    First carefully cover up the AltRider badge with tape match the shape of the badge. We would recommend cutting the tape to cover up to the outlines of the badge with an exacto knife or boxcutter.

2.    Put on a pair of surgical or any type of work gloves and cover the floor or space where you’ll be doing the buffing. This generates some residue so both of these steps are highly recommended.

3.    With the Scotch Brite pads, use slight tension and gently rub the bars in the same direction, one section at a time. We rubbed ours horizontally. You want to make sure to rub the bars in the SAME direction for the entire bar whether it’s up and down or side to side. This leaves a consistent grain finish making the touch up work less noticeable.

Check out the difference between the buffed crash bar and the other untouched bar—it’s very noticeable. The deep scratches will remain but the look of the bar will be like new. 
If you have very deep scratches you can use an angle grinder with a Scotch bright pad mounted to a Velcro wheel pad.  This will allow you to feather out the deep scratches.  Start by practicing on the less noticeable locations as it requires some skill.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about making over your black powder-coated bars, leave a comment or email us at info@altrider.com.