Stainless buffing question

The part you are trying to polish looks like a reproduction part. There are something like 26 or 28 grades of stainless steel ranging from S.S. used in knives and forks to almost non destructible jet engine parts. The more chromium in the part the better the shine. You don't know what S.S. was used in your part, nor do you know if it was annealed to allow the part to be formed. The pictures show a lot of "pitting" and scratches and just might be another case of "Chinese" junk. You may be "chasing your tail".
 
I have been dry sanding, followed by a good wipe down before using the buffing wheel.
Tinbasher: I was reading a machinist forum earlier that talked about pulling up, or lifting, the surface. I didn't get to finish reading it, and now can't find it again. Would you be able to educate me a little more about it?
I can't say where the pars were made; I know they've been on the car since the 70s. I have to believe the upper stanchions are original Ford parts, though.
 
You are buffing wrong, but you probably figured that out.
I taught myself on all the stainless for my 31. It was not a quick learning curve and it was not cheap to get the right supplies. Even then it is not as nice as I would like, but later I looked at pro stuff and realized I am not so bad. Florescent long tube lights are great for finding dents (look for distortion) but are horrible for seeing the final finish, it looks way worse then in daylight.

The little dents are from a wheel that is loaded up with polish and they are acting like little hammers. You need a rake to clean your wheel or throw it away and start over. You need the correct size wheels for the RPM of your buffer. Oh, I know cause I had that same problem at first!!

You also are not getting rid of the scratch properly. That is you start with the finest grit paper that you think will remove the existing defects. When you can see you have cut through all the bad stuff now you sand 90 degrees to remove the sanding scratch you created. Keep repeating until you get to 600 to 1200 depending on stuff. It is a very slow process to right by hand. In some cases a rubber wheel with tri-zact bands can speed things up. In the end, hand wet sanding for hours is your friend.
You need to wet sand and use major name brand paper like 3m or Norton. Cheap paper dulls on the stainless in just a few strokes and costs you more in the end.
You only load on a small (like 1 second) amount of the polish on the wheel. You MUST have the correct wheel and polish for the material. There is NO standard on the color of the material, if you do not know what it is then you do not have the right stuff. Buy from a good place (Eastwood is ok too) and keep you stuff labeled and clean.

Respect the wheel, polish on the bottom and understand it can break your arm. It almost happened to me once. I got a metal band watch ripped off my arm when a head light rim caught wrong. I thought it was broke but I got lucky. I have a Baldor buffer I bought at Hershey used cheap. On my way out with the buffer I went by Tar Heel Parts and they sold me all the correct stuff I needed to do brass and stainless including the buffing gloves. To remove the black wax you need cornstarch, it seems like nothing takes that off, but with corn starch it comes right off.

I suggest you get your supplies from tarheelparts.com they will also give you advice if you buy from them (well worth the price!!!!!!)
 
Thanks, Kevin. I was suspicious that I may be using the wrong size wheels for my buffing motor. Mine is a Harbor Freight model. I buy my wheels from Eastwood, mostly. They seem to hold together better than most of the others I've been able to find; I'll check out Tar Heel. I already use 3M paper, so I'll just have to use finer grit.
Thanks again, everyone who contributed to this thread. I'll get some finer paper this weekend and give a report when I have time to try it all out.
 
The suppliers of polishing materials can provide a lot of useful information on the internet. I don't think anyone mentioned it but you should use a different polishing wheel for each grade of rouge and do not mix them up. I use three levels of rouge and the results are stunning. Ed
 
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