garnish bars on hardtop

[drewsalisbury]

There are a few scuff marks and scratches on the hardtop roof garnish bars on my '71 280sl.  (they are off the car)  They look like they may be polished aluminum, not plated.  Has anyone any experience refinishing these things?  Can the scratches & scuff marks be buffed out by a metal shop or is there some kind of a plated finish on them?
thanks for any advice.
Drew
1971 280sl auto
1965 230sl 4spd, no trim bars on hardtop

[Longtooth]

Drew, sounds like you're referring to the ski rack garnish molding running lengthwise down the pagoda hard-top.  On my 67' 250SL these are chromium plated... not polished aluminum.  My hard-top is orig and never been taken apart --- I can tell by the difficulty I'm having removing some of the chrome garnish on the side windows so far.... as well as the state of the rest of it....

My ski-rack garnish strips are tarnished chrome plated.... just like the other chrome pieces on the car and hard-top that've had time/elements take their toll on them.  This is in contrast to and unlike the apparently polished aluminum strips along the sides of the car (below the chrome side-strips with the rubber).  I say 'apparently' because these lower side-strips aren't nor do they ever appear to have been chrome plated... or if they were then a very very thin layer that's long since gone.... or maybe they're just Nickel plated... but definitely not chrome.

Longtooth
67 250SL US #113-043-10-002163
95 SL500

[drewsalisbury]

They are the 2 strips that run the length of the roof of the hardtop.  I think that I read somewhere (?) that they were changed to polished aluminum from chrome late in production.  They are pretty light, almost certainly aluminum.  I'm hoping to get definition that the finish should be polished or should be plated on a 1971 car.
Thanks again,
Drew
1971 280sl

Drew Salisbury

[Douglas]

Drew, they're aluminum on a 71 car, just like the drip rails. I'll dig up the details on when they made the change from chrome to aluminum. Stay tuned.

Douglas Kim
New York, NY
#018260