Can anyone tell me how to do this? I've seen it done with a bench model drill, but is it possible to do it with a hand drill? I love the look of it, I just dunno how to go about doing it. Many thanks if anyone can help me

you can do it with a hand drill, but the likely hood of slippage is huge.....

I've never seen anything but an eraser like roll used for it... I know eastwood carries them, among others i'm sure.

as far as how to do it, pick a corner, hit it with the burnishing roll til desired result appears. keep an even spacing to your pattern, and go to town. as much fun as porting your own heads i can guarantee....

I've done it with those 3M abrasive pads held in a milling machine drill chuck with a little varsol as a lubricant, you will need to fix the part in place (so it doesn't move) and be able to index it so it looks right. Use the lowest RPM you can and light hand pressure or else the polish marks turn out dull...especially on aluminum.

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Outlawed tunes from outlawed pipes

There are many ways to do it. Since this trick was performed by backyard builders from the 20s & 30s as they copied luxury car companies using aero engines and etc., they did it without the aid of a mill.

To do it where it looks the best, find you anything that you can chuck into a drill press. This can be anything from a wooden dowel, to a cut-down broomstick ...all the way to a hard cotton roll.

Whatever size you decide on, measure the burnishing end's diameter. What ever that number is ...divide it by 1/2. (i.e.: 1" = 1/2"). Lay out a "grid" using a dental pick to scribe into the aluminum on a 1/2" (if you are using a 1" burnisher) grid. All you are wanting to do is score the aluminum enough to be able to reference off of.

Next make a fence for your drill press. What I have seen is a piece of plywood with a 2/2 glued to one end. If you will layout some indexing lines on the fence that will help speed up the process too. Clamp the board/fence onto your drill press with the burnisher centered over the top of your first intersecting line at the corner. It really doesn't matter at which corner you start at but you will end up on the opposite side's corner furtherest away from where you are starting.

When you burnish, remember you are overlapping by about 50% in each direction so that all that you are really doing is 90 degrees of the "turn". (i.e.: like from 12:00 to 3:00 on a clock). What I think works best is to use valve grinding compound. It is available at most parts supply stores and usually comes in two grits. Use the fine grit for aluminum and the coarse grit on stainless.

Oh, BTW, make sure your panel is polished prior to beginning and do your burnishing prior to drilling holes if you want it to look it's best. Good Luck!!

Maybe its time to get my old coal mine machine shop mini drill press out of storage and go out cleaning it up. I suppose they're a good thing to have right? Now I just need someone to walk me through that too

I have a CNC router that would work great for this. Just map out the grid on the puter' screen and let the router turn the design. I kinda' like the look of plain polished aluminum tho.

Well this is only to accent a few parts on it, I don't want it everywhere. Except when it'll come to the valve covers, I want alot there, it'll look niiice, with that and some wrinkle finish on it, I'll have a nice looking engine, even if it is in a Taurus

Edit: And I mean on another part of the valve cover, not over it, I'm not dumb