• If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

polishing stainless steel

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • polishing stainless steel

    Here's another one I did some time ago and thought maybe some would like to see what can be done. This is a turbo wing off of a tractor that is about 9 years old and never cleaned or cared for and what does about to stainless steel under these condition, but showing you that you can bring it back out.

    Used a rotary and a s&m wool cutting pad with mothers cream polish at the time and some mineral spirits.

    This picture is after I already polished from the bracket down, and from the bracket up gave me problems because of the sun beating down on it all these years and not being taken care of.

    This is the finished backside and much better, I believe I spent about 3 hours or so just on the back of this wing.


    That I would show from a distance.

    And here's the before picture of the front of the wing.


    This picture is of a section that I worked on for about an hour and a half, spent I think about 4 hours total on the front. And was the hardest metal I've polished so for.


    Here's the front of the wing finished and with a mirror shine!



    Thought I would just go ahead and post up an aluminum full fender on a big rig I also did. The frist picture is of me standing on the back looking down to get both fenders, as you can see I will be doing the fender on the left side and you can see that I've been doing test spots on it with 3 different aluminum polishes from some of the truckers that come in from time to time to get their truck worked on and come over to where I'm at to show me what type of metal polish they have to test it. And this day was perfect because as your about to see I was doing the fender. Anyway I'll stop writing a story and show pictures, but these aren't like my others with a before, during, and after because I was in a hurry at work.

    Here's what I'm starting with.


    And after about 3 hours or so of polishing.


    And a outside picture of the wing back on and the fender.


    I know some of you have already seen alot of my pictures but I'm doing something I should have done long ago!

    Sorry buddy if your looking at these again!

    And thanks!!!
    ''USE THE LEAST AGGRESSIVE PRODUCT TO GET THE JOB DONE RIGHT''
    You Don't Know What You Can Do Until You Try '' TECHNIQUE IS EVERYTHING''
    Test Hoods Are Cheap And Most Of The Time Free

  • #2
    Re: polishing stainless steel

    Looks great!

    I've only done small scale aluminum polishing and can't imaging the black that came out of there. When ever I polish I go through countless rags that all end up pitch black.
    Scott

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: polishing stainless steel

      Great work Good pictures
      http://i381.photobucket.com/albums/o...b029d544_1.gifhttp://www.auto-etc.com

      http://www.auto-etc.com/

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: polishing stainless steel

        That looks like it was a lot of polishing. But the results are great. Great work.
        quality creates its own demand

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: polishing stainless steel

          Originally posted by BlueZero View Post
          Looks great!

          I've only done small scale aluminum polishing and can't imaging the black that came out of there. When ever I polish I go through countless rags that all end up pitch black.
          Believe it or not I only used 1 micro-fiber towel on the turbo wing, and just one micro-fiber on the full fender.
          What I do is take a 5 gal. bucket and fell about half way with water and every time I need to do a wipe off of a section just grab my micro-fiber out of the bucket of water a wring out the water and give a fast wipe down and then return the micro-fiber back to the bucket.
          When I polish out the fuel tanks on the big rigs I would have to some times empty the bucket a couple times because the bucket would turn and be fulled with so much black residue as you could imagine.

          Also another thing I also keep handy is some mineral spirits and fell up a cheap spray bottle with it, because if you polish a spot or area to fast you know how you get that burned polish area, so I will take the spray bottle of mineral spirits and spray on the area and wipe off with a micro-fiber and then move on instead of trying to rub it off and putting scratches in your polished parts.

          Why don't you start posting some of your parts that you polish on here I'd like to see them?
          And what type of bars do you use and your process and equipment do you have?

          Here is what I use to polish my metal parts.
          The tubes on the left is what I get from lowes and is like meguars I know the numbers and how and what each one can and will do. They are pretty cheap and can go pick up my self instead of ordering and do justas good if not better then the other 3 brands of products I have.


          And my buffing wheels that 90% of them also come from lowes (which they only carry 2 but do the job for the cutting and polishing just use the mibro polishing compounds for going finer and finer until you get that mirror finish). Find something you like and looks good to you and stick to it.


          Just thought I would throw this in to show what can be done with the products and wheels.


          OK bluezero lets see your parts and products. Hope this is whayou was talking about if not go ahead and lets see, because I'm not no pro or trying to be just learning and playing around and learning more things everytime I do some metal polishing and maybe you do things that I can learn from or something that's better then what I'm doing now.

          LATER
          ''USE THE LEAST AGGRESSIVE PRODUCT TO GET THE JOB DONE RIGHT''
          You Don't Know What You Can Do Until You Try '' TECHNIQUE IS EVERYTHING''
          Test Hoods Are Cheap And Most Of The Time Free

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: polishing stainless steel

            Everything I've done has been by hand. I just use Meg's metal polish or their paint polish (#80 etc.). My towel holder in my apartment turned out great. Wonder if the landlord noticed when I moved out that all the fixtures had been polished. lol

            I'll keep that bucket of water trick in mind.

            I've always been tempted to pick up some of the bars at Harbor Freight. What color would you recommend? Can you use foam pads or should I get some of those cotton wheels?

            My mom has some old copper antiques that would be fun to give a go.
            Scott

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: polishing stainless steel

              No go to lowes and pick you up some of the mibro tubes and 2 each of the wheels and you have a bench grinder like this don't you?


              If you can get a adjustable one that will go down to 1750 rpm's because this is what you need to polish plastic lenses and plastic that has had the chrome plating on it (have a picture of plastic chrome plated wheel center caps that I think you've seen, right. if not let me know and I will post it up for you.

              LATER
              ''USE THE LEAST AGGRESSIVE PRODUCT TO GET THE JOB DONE RIGHT''
              You Don't Know What You Can Do Until You Try '' TECHNIQUE IS EVERYTHING''
              Test Hoods Are Cheap And Most Of The Time Free

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: polishing stainless steel

                Thanks for the advice. I don't have a grinder, all I have are woodworking tools. I'll have to asked my dad when I see him this weekend, he always seems to have 3 of everything.
                Scott

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: polishing stainless steel

                  Good info on the products and tools available for getting into metal polishing, we recommend for people to check out the Eastwood.com company all the time as they do a good job of catering to old car buffs and part of restoring old cars is being able to restore the shine to stainless steel.

                  Aluminum and Chrome are pretty easy to get polishes for, but stainless steel requires specialized compounds and polishes as well as the proper buffing pads, (Felt I believe), to safely remove the dull look and restore brilliance.


                  Mike Phillips
                  760-515-0444
                  showcargarage@gmail.com

                  "Find something you like and use it often"

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: polishing stainless steel

                    Great job Daniel!

                    Comment

                    Working...
                    X
                    gtag('config', 'UA-161993-8');