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And with taste being clearly subjective, my eyes like it better than stock:

Here is a picture with the polished tip (.01) on the car and the blasted original (.00) on the ground.

I could probably polish up a bit nicer, but I would say as is it looks like the finish you would see on a nice aftermarket tip.

Steve

Quote:

Originally Posted by velorider (Post 416953)

No trim on my 550 windshield -- just black rubber. This was not a blasted tip, so it must have been SERIOUSLY neglected. The stainless was in immaculate shape, but looked raw. It took a lot of work to get shine from it which makes me think it was never shiny.

But I'm not an expert. Here is the finished product on the backend of my car. I have a nasty habit of never taking "before" photos but just imagine raw stainless steel -- the finish looks like most exhaust tubing seen below the car, rarely a part that you would see sticking out of the car at the tailpipe. Certainly all steel CAN be polished....it's just a matter of work. This one took work.

Can you post a pic of your tips Qmulus? They may look exactly like mine do now....but I'm interested to see.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1409760329.jpg

Mine started -- at least in general tone - looking like your blasted tip example; completely flat in appearance with the grain of steel very evident. And you can see my finished product is something just short of how shiny your polished tip is. What is on your black car is all sorts of shiny compared to my "kinda shiny" piece.

So.....I don't know what I've learned. I'm starting to think I polished the hell out of a blasted tip instead of thinking I revived a formerly polished tip that was neglected. I've certainly spent a lot of time with a lot of tips over the years (I'll just let that humor smolder out there without EVEN touching it) and I know chrome vs polished from 10 feet away. But the specifics of these two tips may remain a mystery until I have one in front of me to compare to my memory of what I started with before I went at it with sandpapers and compounds and Makita polishing tools.

The good news? I love the look I have. The bad news? I'm honest enough to admit I'm fickle, and may roll up to your car or another one and like that look better!

Well, it should be easy to see which tip you have as the part number is stamped on the bottom of the left tip.

I doubt most people would even notice the difference between the blasted or polished tips. If you are observant (and maybe OCD ;) ) enough to tell the difference between two of the polished tips, especially from a picture, you are truly skilled.

I will admit that I did take some metal polish to the polished tips when I put them on, but mostly to get rid of the road grime, and when I went to all the trouble to put in the PSE I wanted it to look like new.

I do like that 550 edition tip.

Steve

Ladies and gentlemen, I can confirm once and for all: I have just polished a blasted tip. Part number ending in .00 -- as stamped in the piece itself.

How in the holy hell did I get this far and fail to ever look at the part number? I think I needed it to be beaten into my head the 17th time before it occurred to me that it was there in front of me the entire time.

Well that explains the amount of work it took to make it shine!!

And yes....I like both tips. For now the round has my eye but I can swap the 550 tip in anytime the mood strikes. Kind of a handy feature to have a single-bolt option to make a big visual change to the rear end. Too bad they took it away.

Yes, that would be a whole lot of work to polish that blasted tip. Anyway, it appears that there was a happy ending to all of that tip polishing. :D

Steve

Quote:

Originally Posted by velorider (Post 417060)