Need help polishing Stainless Steel
 

I have some Stainless Steel pieces (several feet in length) that currently
have a brushed finish. I want to buff / polish these to a mirror finish. I
have a new bench grinder, but I have no experiece with buffing wheels and
compounds. Due to the amount of material, I would prefer to do as little by
hand (sandpaper) as possible, but I ultimately want a nice end result. What
products (stitched wheel, felt wheel, firmness of either, compounds, etc) do
I need to accomplish this? I have tried some buffing, but many of the
deeper original scratches remain.

Any details on procedures and products would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

"GrayMatter" wrote in message
...
I have some Stainless Steel pieces (several feet in length) that currently
have a brushed finish. I want to buff / polish these to a mirror finish.
I have a new bench grinder, but I have no experiece with buffing wheels and
compounds. Due to the amount of material, I would prefer to do as little
by hand (sandpaper) as possible, but I ultimately want a nice end result.
What products (stitched wheel, felt wheel, firmness of either, compounds,
etc) do I need to accomplish this? I have tried some buffing, but many of
the deeper original scratches remain.

Any details on procedures and products would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Hi, Have a look at this site, very helpfull for a first timer.
Regards. Ben

No link showed up. Do you have a link you can send me?

Thanks

"Rotty" wrote in message
...

"GrayMatter" wrote in message
...
I have some Stainless Steel pieces (several feet in length) that currently
have a brushed finish. I want to buff / polish these to a mirror finish.
I have a new bench grinder, but I have no experiece with buffing wheels
and compounds. Due to the amount of material, I would prefer to do as
little by hand (sandpaper) as possible, but I ultimately want a nice end
result. What products (stitched wheel, felt wheel, firmness of either,
compounds, etc) do I need to accomplish this? I have tried some buffing,
but many of the deeper original scratches remain.

Any details on procedures and products would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Hi, Have a look at this site, very helpfull for a first timer.
Regards. Ben

Subject: Need help polishing Stainless Steel
From: "GrayMatter"
Date: 1/30/2005 9:17 A.M. Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

I have some Stainless Steel pieces (several feet in length) that currently
have a brushed finish. I want to buff / polish these to a mirror finish. I
have a new bench grinder, but I have no experiece with buffing wheels and
compounds. Due to the amount of material, I would prefer to do as little by
hand (sandpaper) as possible, but I ultimately want a nice end result. What
products (stitched wheel, felt wheel, firmness of either, compounds, etc) do
I need to accomplish this? I have tried some buffing, but many of the
deeper original scratches remain.

Any details on procedures and products would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks









You can get stainless steel sheet with "mirror" finish. It will save you a lot
of trouble. Even flat finish stainless sheet would be easier to polish up than
brush finish.

Regards....Walt

My local laser profiler has said that in the UK at least the mills won't
do mirror finish below 2mm IIRC, below that you can get bright annealed
which is close and polishes easily.

Hion solar wrote:

Subject: Need help polishing Stainless Steel
From: "GrayMatter"
Date: 1/30/2005 9:17 A.M. Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

I have some Stainless Steel pieces (several feet in length) that currently
have a brushed finish. I want to buff / polish these to a mirror finish. I
have a new bench grinder, but I have no experiece with buffing wheels and
compounds. Due to the amount of material, I would prefer to do as little by
hand (sandpaper) as possible, but I ultimately want a nice end result. What
products (stitched wheel, felt wheel, firmness of either, compounds, etc) do
I need to accomplish this? I have tried some buffing, but many of the
deeper original scratches remain.

Any details on procedures and products would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks









You can get stainless steel sheet with "mirror" finish. It will save you a lot
of trouble. Even flat finish stainless sheet would be easier to polish up than
brush finish.

Regards....Walt

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 11:17:35 -0600, the inscrutable "GrayMatter"
spake:

I have some Stainless Steel pieces (several feet in length) that currently
have a brushed finish. I want to buff / polish these to a mirror finish. I
have a new bench grinder, but I have no experiece with buffing wheels and
compounds. Due to the amount of material, I would prefer to do as little by
hand (sandpaper) as possible, but I ultimately want a nice end result. What
products (stitched wheel, felt wheel, firmness of either, compounds, etc) do
I need to accomplish this? I have tried some buffing, but many of the
deeper original scratches remain.

Any details on procedures and products would be greatly appreciated.

SWAG: Sand them (ROS) with progressively finer grits until they begin
to shine, THEN buff (orbital) with progressively finer compounds.
Finish up with Mother's.

http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/sspolkit.html Here's a kit.
It looks like it has white rouge, black emery, and green chromium
oxide sticks. http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/buffing.htm

But sand the scratches out first. That's likely how they were put
the with a belt sander.


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GrayMatter,

A few years back I posted here about polishing some SS, you should be able
to Google that info up. Quickly, we used some Norton Abrasives unified
wheels, Bear Tek by name, to begin teh polishing process. They were 220
grit, so they did not do very much material removing, mostly just polishing.
After that we used stitched cotton wheels and rouge compounds to achieve the
final look. We were using hand held die grinders for all of the above, but
I am sure you can find what you would need to fit your bench grinder.

Best of luck,
Jim C Roberts