Seat post.

[Polite]

What material is your seatpost made from?

Hi, it's silver in colour and steel, I think.

a steel seat post on a 'special' new touring bike? It doesn't sound that likely to me. Does a magnet stick to the seat post?

at risk of repeating myself, photo please...? Or at least the make and model of the bike/seat post?

the very first ride i had on a custom built, steel 631 frame with campagnolo titanium seatpost .....i found the seatpost maybe 2 or more inches down into the frame with the associated marking thereon....
....still there to this day!!

owww! That's gotta rankle...

cheers

I don't have a magnet. Let's assume it's aluminium ......

[cyclop]

The paint on the seat stays of my 15yr old trek was bubbling so I removed with stripper,rubbed down with fine wet and dry,polished with autosolvol(by hand),came up brilliant.Could you employ the same method?

[pwa]

Looks superficial, so some sort of buffing /polishing might remove most of it. I know it's only cosmetic, but it is nice to see a seat post looking good.

[Brucey]

it looks like it might be anodised aluminium to me; if so it means if you want to 'polish it out' you will have to strip the anodising from the seat post entirely, with is no small job.

That the seat post got that badly scratched in the first place probably means that there is scope for a little polishing/deburring inside the seat lug.

cheers

[MikeF]

If it's just superficial, car polish may do. Perhaps T-Cut and then polish? Try it first on a piece of the post that will never show ie the part normally well into the seat post, as you may find the mirror finish is lost with T-Cut and the effect of car polish will also be unknown.

[hamster]

Brasso or Solvol Autosol should buff out the worst of the scratches. If they are deep and persist then repeat with 2400 wet and dry sandpaper (wet) first.

[Brucey]

as I noted previously, ordinary polishing is pretty much ineffective if the part is anodised.

If you don't know if it is anodised or not, try polishing an undamaged, inconspicuous area of the post using a little solvol autosol and a clean rag. If the rag and the polish quickly turn black, the post is polished, not anodised. However if the polish stays white in colour and doesn't seem to be doing much to the post after a minute or so, then the part is anodised, and the scratches will not disappear with polishing.

On an anodised post you may be able to improve the appearance of scratches using polish, but they will always show quite (or very) badly unless you strip all the anodising off.

cheers