How To Buff Stainless To Mirror
 

Hey, I need Pelican advice on buffing stainless steel (and other metals) to a mirror finish. This is for the espresso machine's exterior panels. They were originally mirror finished, I am trying to restore them.

I have a buffing machine ($69 Harbor Freight deal) and some 6" and 8" buffing wheels/pads. I have been using rouge to buff with. Sometimes it works great, and sometimes I get a cloudy haze. Is there a trick I am missing?

One of the pieces is quite scratched, up top where people must have been banging down cups and milk steaming pitchers for 20 years. What is the best way to get rid of the scratches before buffing?

Is there a role for hand polishing? I tried for a bit but it seemed like my hand would wear out before anything much happened.

Autosol.

I used to polish my Triumph aluminum sidecovers to look like chrome.

It will work fine on stainless steel :)

Mothers polish will get it back to mirror. I use my harbour freight buffer and ten finish by hand. Sanding is the only way to get rid of the scratches but it becomes a lot of work.

Have you tried Gord's? It's awesome stuff!

I've had pretty good luck with successively finer grits of sandpaper on a DA sander, then jeweler's rouge. Here are some stainless pieces I needed a polished edge on, before and after. If you are getting cloudiness, I wonder if there was already some sort of finish on the steel. Clearcoat, perhaps?



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1544857869.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1544857869.jpg

I used the polishing kit available at Harbor Freight. I think it was about $20. Has several compounds and pads. I used a drill but you can use a buffer depending on your project.

With these I just went through the compounds. To remove the scratches wet sand first with 800, 1500, 2000 then polish. After you polish and clean with soap and water try polishing a little more with Never dull. The stuff is fantastic. Then apply a little wax


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1544875676.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1544875676.JPG

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1544875676.JPG

I'm a big fan of Simichrome

SIMICHROMEPOLISH.COM

When I did all the stainless trim on my Corvair during my restoration I used a Harbor Freight polishing lathe and compounds. Worked great. Messy business though. Don't wear any clothes that you like, and construct a large box that you can put the lathe inside, with an open end towards you. That keeps the mess down a little. The only thing I wish for on the HF was a lower speed, but it worked.

for multiple uses, i love my extended shaft 8" twin shaft buffer.


https://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-1-2-hp-buffmotor.html?SRCCODE=PLA00020&gclid=Cj0KCQiA6dLg BRDoARIsAJgoM4t7IlNMq-YRsCsHbchrzbU5qsmUNgQpOVhbl38uJrDMf9JKJjCE1_YaAqSV EALw_wcB

When purchasing buffing compounds in the stick form, you will find a few grades like 'jeweler's rouge'. One compound I have says for SS. I use a regular cotton buffing wheel. It seems all the products mentioned so far like Semichrome (good siht) do work very well but they can be expensive to be flinging it off a buffing wheel. I save those for hand work to put the last finish down.

Waxing or using a ceramic coating will really bring out the gloss, especially the ceramic.

For the pieces that are quite scratched, depending how deep the scratches are, you will probably have to go down to 400 grit wet to cut them out, then move up to 600 wet, 800 wet and so on up to polish, probably want to use a rubber sanding block also to help keep it flat.

No harm in hitting it with polish first and see if they will blend in.

I use Renaissance wax. I learnt about it on the S&W site. It makes blued guns quite titerally glow. It was originally developed by the British muesum for protecting statues outdoors and other artifacts indoors, but works well to make things shine like SS.

One more here for Jewelers rouge. I used it for the petals and lips on my Fuchs.

I'm frustrated. My buffing wheel loaded with rouge just put a bunch of fine scratches in part of the panel. I guess I'll get new wheels and start over.

I have had better success with Eastwood products.

Are you sure they are scratches and not burns? I thought mine was scratching and it ended up being rouge that got too warm. The other thing is, are you getting it down to a fine sandpaper prior to buffing?

For a world class shine you have to go through multiple steps of sanding. Then multiple steps of polishing.

The fking surface was originally mirror polished, just light scratching from decades of use. Now I've made it worse. Pissed. Stepping away from the buffing wheel for awhile.