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Blazing_Zippers's avatar
Blazing_Zippers
Explorer II
Mar 31, 2019

Polishing diamond plate

Our new trailer has diamond plate on the front. It got "etched" or marked by the ice melt used this winter on the highway. Have any of you polished the diamond plate, and if so, what did you use? I've thrown everything I've got in the house at this--no result.
A side note; I used Rustolieum gel in a squirt bottle (from HD) to remove the surface rust from the frame. I have to say that it worked quite well. The lug nuts were rusted, so I used a brush to spread the gel around and after power washing a little, all was bright again. Always good to have shiny, well, you know.....
  • Any number of polishes will work fine or similarly. Job will go much quicker with a rotary polisher. Raw Aluminum is tedious and intensive to keep up, but looks so nice when done!
  • A lot of the "diamond plate" rockguard on newer trailers is actually plastic, not aluminum..........either paluminum or alumastic.
  • once you confirm that its actually metal then you can get one of those rim "balls" that go onto a drill and use metal polish to bring back some of the shine
  • I learned about Alumabrite from the boat guys. Works well, especially on a rough surface you can't put a wheel on.
  • After visiting the auto store, I polished a portion of the diamond plate today. Whatever they used on the highway for ice melt actually etched the metal. I can feel the depression in the finish.
    Anyway, it looks better - like a 20/20 job - 20 feet away and 20 miles per hour. Thanks to all that answered.
  • Latner wrote:
    After you get it all cleaned up the way you want it, use this:

    Sharkhide


    Have you used this stuff? My neighbor did his aluminum boat and it looked great, but idk how it holds up because he never used the boat, lol.
    I was going to get some but haven't polished my sled tunnels and trailer diamond plate yet.
    Curious how durable it is.
  • This is what we used to use to prep the diamond plate on fire trucks for parade season.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcBVpMvG........rtCvwiJSGit6lKD5j3pk0uytG2rfG_S6JrJ58p3g

    Hope you don't have the same area to do. There is a LOT of diamond plate on a fire truck. It required a lot of junior members.

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