Polishing stainless and aluminium

[Punkur67]

Does anybody know how to polish stainless and aluminium at home. I want to do some parts and a stainless fuel tank. Hate paying hundreds if I can do it myself.

[Admin]

I polished a spun aluminum gas tank one time... sand the shit out of it till its baby smotth, then just wheel the hell out of it for about 4 days, lol, got to use pretty aggressive compound...

[fabr]

How big of parts besides the tank? SS and aluminum take different approaches.Which you want to talk about first?

[Punkur67]

Small aluminium parts like my water bypass on my subaru motor. Also small stainless like the j tube for my intake. I want to know what compounds, tools, and processes I need to do the job. I messed with a skidplate once with some mothers and a buff ball but not the results I was looking for. I am willing to get what I need to do the job. I have an 8" variable speed bench grinder I thought I might be able to use on the small parts.

[fabr]

Look here for a start.

http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemType=CATEGORY&itemID=432

[VLADD]

Eastwood had a boatload of polishes, I have some of their buffs and compouds ...good stuff

[405dentech]

As Bug said earlier, start by sanding. Use a sanding block with 400 grit until smooth. Take off your grinding wheels and replace with buffing wheels. You want a spiral sewn wheel dressed with a cutting compound (you will buff the sanded piece with this wheel first). Then on the other side of your grinder you want a loose buffing wheel (not spiral sewn) dressed with a high gloss polish. From there you just use light pressure until the pice looks like a mirror. Also try and polish with even strokes. AND by all means wear gloves because the piece you are working on will get HOTTTT. Once you get the hang of it it is really easy and you will be polishing shit that already looks just fine. Good luck and happy polishing.

[Punkur67]

I am going to order the kit for stainless and aluminium from eastwood. What should I use for the fuel tank. I saw a disk for the 4" grinder, is that what I need for large parts?

[fabr]

I just mentioned the eastwood site for info.There are much cheaper places to buy from.I'm not going to be back till Monday.I'll try to post up where I get my stuff from then.I can't recall the name and the info is at the shop.

[405dentech]

You will also want to keep a death grip an the pieces you are polishing. If you press too hard into the polishing wheel it catch and rip your parts out of your hands. If i could post pics on here i would show you some of the stuff i have done.(can't figure it out though)

[405dentech]

You can usually get all the compounds and different buffing wheels at Harbor Freight, Ace Hardware, Lowes, or Home Depot. All of these places will have a good assortment of cutting and polishing compounds and buffing wheels. Also i know the ones i get from Lowes state what kind of metal they are best used on. i.e. copper, brass, aluminum etc.

[VLADD]

Wow,
I never thought about them,
I used to get mine from PRO, they weren't cheap but the quality was really good...

[Odyknuck]

Based on my experience by the time you invest in what you "Really" need to do the job right you may be better off having a pro do it for you.  If you feel you are going to use the harware in the future and you dont mind spending hours upon hours sanding and polishing go for it!  I still have my Buffer and I use it on a rare occation for small pieces or dressup and thats about it. A small good Baldor Buffer is around $400.00 plus wheels and compounds.

[fabr]

Based on my experience by the time you invest in what you "Really" need to do the job right you may be better off having a pro do it for you.  If you feel you are going to use the harware in the future and you dont mind spending hours upon hours sanding and polishing go for it!  I still have my Buffer and I use it on a rare occation for small pieces or dressup and thats about it. A small good Baldor Buffer is around $400.00 plus wheels and compounds.

Yep.

[405dentech]

I obviously don't know what you guys are polishing. But I have found that an 8in. bench grinder with the right buffing wheels and compounds will produce profesional results with some practice.