Polished diamond plate cleaning

[Dave1983]

Its a never ending task...our engine gets the Flitz every 3-4 days. Its a real pain to get the shine back after a long time.

Must be nice to have all that time on your hands. Were lucky if we can get the rigs waxed on time (every other month).


BTW, no ideas on old diamond plate, other then whats been mentioned, none of which is fast.

The trick is to keep the new stuff looking good. Rinse it well when you wash and dry it right away to prevent water spots. Thats half the battle.

We have some liquid diamond plate cleaner (dont know the name) that you spray on (watch the paint) hit with a scrub brush then a real good rinse. We dont use anything over it other then our car wash which has a VERY high wax content.

Weve been doing this on our 2 newest rigs (02's) and its working good so far.

And, I hope this really doesnt need to be said. PLEASE dont wax any diamond plate that people step/walk on. Someone will go boom.

[BVFD1983]

When the Flitz comes in I will take some before and afters and post them on here.

[ehs7554]

Must be nice to have all that time on your hands. Were lucky if we can get the rigs waxed on time (every other month).

Man I hope you are not serious. Every other month? Some paint manufacturers would frown on this. If this is true, you must be parking your rig outdoors with no protection from the elements. 6 times a year seems to be a bit overkill.

[dmleblanc]

Man I hope you are not serious. Every other month? Some paint manufacturers would frown on this. If this is true, you must be parking your rig outdoors with no protection from the elements. 6 times a year seems to be a bit overkill.

Maybe he meant they get washed every other month....oh, wait, that's us....

[BVFD1983]

We wax (paste or liquid) maybe once a year. We have some spray wax that makes them look good in a lot less time. IMO, for fire apparatus, the protection is not a big deal unless you have a very high call volume. For us (+/- 500/year) the protection from the sun, acid rain, and bird droppings is not a big deal.

We have some people who obviously have no background in paint care who just spray it with the hose and dry it. Drives me crazy.

[Stevethomson907at71]

As far as the applicator goes, try an old square piece of carpet. This works very well, it is stiff enough to clean but still soft enough to get all around the diamonds. We used to use a polishing liquid that had a rabbit on the front and it said something about "the lazy mans polish" this worked very well but I don't remember the name. We used to have to purchase it at a truck stop because no other store carried it.

-Thanks Steve

[Engine58]

We used metal wax this year which i found on the internet....I DO NOT work for metal wax but go to metalwax.com it works really really well too...its just very labor intensive!!

[BFDLT32]

Check with a local truck washing company. We had a guy who brought some stuff from his P/T job in and it worked well. Sorry I do not remember the brand.

[BVFD1983]

There are some before and afters under Engines.

They were all taken recently, the date on my camera was off by about ten years.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rcktfb71/my_photos

[tomwnh]

From someone that has been around apparatus for 28 plus years and up until 2 years ago did an average of 15 shows a year, detailing and cleaning many pieces of apparatus for each show it would make me quite happy if we NEVER put a piece of diamond plate on another fire truck. I have used everything under the sun... and enough Flits to cover the globe two or three times. I love the reflective chevrons we are starting to see on the rear of apparatus. Hit that with soap and water and dry it.... done... ready for the show.

One of the reasons we are having so many problems with the bright work on apparatus is the new treatments they use on the roads in the winter time. Goes on wet, before the storm starts and is more caustic than our old salt. Causing big problems with trucking fleets. Last fall i drove a brand new truck through a recently treated area, about 20 miles and you should have seen the diamond plate when I stoped that night. Dull, spotted and had runs in it. I washed it off that day but to late.