Stainless Polishing
Junior User
Joined: Nov 2013
Posts: 67
Likes: 0
From: Meridian, ID
Not difficult to polish your own. Silver, green, and red Jewelers Rouge and a 6" Buffing Wheel.
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Senior User
Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 345
Likes: 0
From: Yorkville Indiana
I've attempted to polish stainless trim in the past using drill motors and grinders set up with buffing pads but didn't get the quality I was after. I'll leave this to the professional polishers.
More Turbo
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 545
Likes: 15
From: Columbus, IN
We used to buff out SS, brass, and aluminum "professionally" in my family machine shop, did it for decades, and it always came out perfect. We even used to polish plexiglas after machining to get it clear again.
There is no "trick" to polishing, just using the right rouge, buffer pad, and a little patience. The pure cotton pads were what we used, along with white rouge. The white works best with your softer metals, but puts out a brilliant shine as a finishing polish on most other materials. You need to keep plenty of rouge on the pad, and occasionally rough the pad to remove glazed rouge and metal.
One other thing to consider: you need to get the metal warm, and I mean warm. When we polished aluminum, or anything else except plastics for that matter, we used leather gloves. You don't get the metal hot enough to distort or turn colors, but it will definitely burn you, and bring up blisters. Plastics, cannot not be gotten very warm at all, as they melt easily, but a little heat makes the polishing go quicker.
There is no "trick" to polishing, just using the right rouge, buffer pad, and a little patience. The pure cotton pads were what we used, along with white rouge. The white works best with your softer metals, but puts out a brilliant shine as a finishing polish on most other materials. You need to keep plenty of rouge on the pad, and occasionally rough the pad to remove glazed rouge and metal.
One other thing to consider: you need to get the metal warm, and I mean warm. When we polished aluminum, or anything else except plastics for that matter, we used leather gloves. You don't get the metal hot enough to distort or turn colors, but it will definitely burn you, and bring up blisters. Plastics, cannot not be gotten very warm at all, as they melt easily, but a little heat makes the polishing go quicker.
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 16,160
Likes: 4,764
From: Burbank, WA
Look for chrome plating shops in the neighborhood. They are good, typically, at polishing metal, and will do stainless trim polishing.
Fleet Mechanic
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 1,602
Likes: 44
share amound of buffing. But I'll tell you what does work. Sometime a part
is just to big or awkward. So we bring the buffer to the part, which is using
a 4" wheel on a 4" angle grinder. These have the torque and rpms. Wheels
and compounds can be bought anywhere. Like said, use welding gloves, those
innocent cotton wheels will give you a good bite worse yet grab the piece and
watch out. Then after- wd40 with a paper towel does pretty good removing
the residue. For example my 59 Lincoln scuff plates. Ya all know these are
thin kind of flimsey not good on the commercial buffer. So with a couple of
screws, and screwed to a saw horse used the angle grinder/buffer. Perfect.
There must be a truck stop there, and they usually got all the chrome goodies.
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Senior User
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 434
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well the SS i bought i thought i was getting a good deal 20 ft for 30 bucks dont remember anyway i looked at it and it was rough so i started off with a sander and sanded with 100 grit and went to 220 and started the 3 step process there is 5 i only did 3 and it was great , you could see your self in it,, it took some time but it worked and save a lot of money
thanks
thanks
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Logistics Pro
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 4,489
Likes: 5
From: Valley Center, CA
I WENT TO A POLISHER WITH ALL OF THE TRIM OFF OF MY 55 FAIRLANE. HE WANTED WAY TOO MUCH $$. So I bought the supplies myself and did it on my radial arm saw. Learned as I worked. The only thing that I have not heard in this post is the importance of direction of feed. I learned that if you push the part against the rotation of the wheel it will remove the oxidation fine, but for the final "shine" step, you need to pull the piece with the direction of the wheel. This will give you your mirror finish. Also, watch out for putting edges into the moving wheel. It will pull it right out of your hands!
Good luck, Jag
Good luck, Jag
Lead Driver
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,093
Likes: 652
From: Brentwood, TN
I grew up in Cincy...one of my best friends there does car restorations, I am sure he can help. Call "Stoinoff Restorations" at 513-367-2776. Bob is located in Harrison, OH and his boys have a shop in Indiana just across the border.
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Senior User
Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 345
Likes: 0
From: Yorkville Indiana
Charlie thanks for the lead I will give them a call, Im only 15 minutes from Harrison. I'm not looking to invest money to set up to do a lot of polishing. All I need polished is drip rail molding for my 54 F100. Thats why I'm looking to farm out this job.
Used to be a local plating shop here that done polishing for me but the EPA rules made it impossible for him to stay in business. They were a small father and son shop that couldn't afford to keep up with the constantly changing regulations.
Used to be a local plating shop here that done polishing for me but the EPA rules made it impossible for him to stay in business. They were a small father and son shop that couldn't afford to keep up with the constantly changing regulations.
Lead Driver
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,093
Likes: 652
From: Brentwood, TN
Wow, and here I was thinking that it was only here in SoCal that the environmental nuts were running amuck.
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