External Metal Sunvisor

[Coalmossian]

I am currently restoring an external metal sunvisor to go onto my 1960 Traveller currently undergoing restoration.
Took me ages to strip down, but it is now looking really bonnie in its gleaming new paintwork.
However, those aluminium stips that hide the joins are a real pig to clean up to get rid of many years of scratches and pitting! Does anyone know of anyone who manufactures new ones ( forlorn hope, methinks!)? I did see a visor on eBay sometime earlier this year, and the vendor said that it had been fitted with new ones.
Alternatiively does anyone have a good way of cleaning them up? I'm currently using 400 grit wet and dry to try to eliminate the marks of time ( if it works I might try it on myself!) and then I'll work my way through the finer grades before finally polishing, but it's taking a helluva long tome! Is there a better way? And, of course, I lost several of the wee fold-over tags when bending them to remove the strips. I'll probably lose the rest when I refit! Solutions?
HELP!

[MarkyB]

What cross section are they?
You might be able buy lengths of it.

[Coalmossian]

Section is approx 20mm x 5mm, but unfortunately they are not made from solid bar. They are pressed from thin aluminium and are hollow. I have a feeling that solid bar, apart from being a bit tricky to bend, may not "sit" properly, but I may be wrong!
Anyone out there tried making new ones from solid bar? I know you're a recourceful lot!

[IaininTenbury]

I've used both brass and steel bar for making the trim strips with in the past. Idea being that they can be chromed and then look very smart. The brass was a pain to form as it turned out to be cast bar, rather than rolled bar and just snapped if I tried to bend it cold. Steel bar was easy enough to bend over a stake in the anvil - (even easier if warmed up first) and can then be filed and polished for plating or just painted dependign on preferance.
If you've got the original strips though they should clean up well enough. If I recall correctly they were anodised so you'd need to go at it pretty hard to get through the anodising. Not much you can do about the tabs though. You can probably get ally bar that section too which will be alot easier to form than steel. (I use steel because its easy to weld threaded studs to the underneath so they can be bolted on with no visible fixings on top).