[jmking9]

I stripped and restored the trim that is on my truck. The set I bought was in decent shape, but I was going for show quality. I started by stripping the black paint off with regular aircraft stripper. Before you can start the process of fixing dents and sanding out scratches, you have to strip the anodizing off of the aluminum. To do this, I built a trough out of a long piece of 6" PVC with caps on each end. Then I cut an opening along the entire length of the PVC. I then filled the pipe with several bottles of hair and clog remover from Home Depot (or anywhere I think) I would put each piece in the trough individually making sure to completely submerge the entire piece. Once the anodizing is removed I rinsed the pieces off with water. Then, using a trim restoration kit I got from Eastwood, I worked out all of the dents. (there are several good videos on youtube that show how to do this) Once the dents were out, I sanded each piece starting at 600 or 800 grit (depending on the amount/depth of the scratches) working my way up to 2000 grit. Then a 3 stage polishing process to get that mirror finish. I don't remember the exact wheels and compounds I used for each step, but if you're interested, I may still have it wrote down somewhere. For painting the black I used SEM Trim Paint that several others had recommended. I taped off the trim and did each stripe individually. This whole process takes MANY hrs but was well worth the effort in my opinion. It just takes a lot of patience.