Can someone recommend a good company to send my stainless moldings for polishing?

Thanks Rich

Yeah, send them to 67ragtp in NJ He does an AWESOME job.

Seriously though, why do you want to farm the job out? It's not that difficult, just a bit time consuming.

I bought a stainless steel polishing kit from MSC, the big industrial supply catalog company, for around $20. You'll find 'em at www1.mscdirect.com/cgi/nnsrhm It came with buffing wheels to fit my bench grinder and a couple of different kinds of polishing compound. It took me about 3 hours and did an awesome job!!

You do have to be careful. It's pretty easy to get one of the moldings pulled into the buffing wheel and all jammed up!! This will make a mess out of the moldings!!


Paul D.

Funk

To tell you the truth I have 3 wheels and 3 different polishes(brown/ and two whites and one of the whites is specific for stainless. I spent over an hour on one of the short sides of the windshield molding and I still have fine sanding scratches. I started with 600 went to 800 and finished with crocus cloth. Tried the high cut brown rouge with the coarse wheel and finished up with the whites. Cant get the micro scratches out. So Im thinking perhaps my time is worth more than the strugle Im experianceing. Ihave alot of pieces to do, front and rear window moldings drip moldings interior door panel etc.

PdQuick- did you have any polishing scratches after you polished kind of visible in low light conditions. maybe Im trying to get them to look too perfect or maybe Im just not doing it right. My polishing motor is small dosent spin as fast as these grinders you guys use.

Rich

I spent hours and hours trying to get mine "perfect" using a wheel on a bench grinder. Couldn't be done!!!!
I looked around for someone to polish them professionally, and I got a quote of $ 10 per foot. (and they were already close to perfect)

I finally made contact with a local guy who does some restorations. He had four grades of wheels on professional buffers...a scotchbrite wheel, a grey, a white, and a blue. The wheels were stacked 4 wide on each shaft to make a 2" wide surface. He needed a new set of wheels for the grey, and some new rouge sticks. I offered to buy him a new set of wheels, and sticks in exchange for his allowing me to use his equipment.

It took me about 7-8 hours to do windshield, back glass, and drip rails.

800 grit is too coarse for final sanding. try 1500 then 2000 and then buff. thats what i did and they look like chrome.

I worked a few dents out of mine and polished myself. They looked very nice until I compared them to some done by a pro. Needless to say, what a diff. I sent mine out to a pro.

Ok Codi- who did you send them to? Name/Number? Thanks Rich

800 grit is too coarse for final sanding. try 1500 then 2000 and then buff. thats what i did and they look like chrome.


Thats exactly the trick.

Stainless is very hard, so getting the scratches out is a bitch.

I polish Custom-made gas caps that are solid SS, and sent to me in raw condition.

I start with 180 grit, followed by 320, followed by 500, followed by 800, followed by 1500.

The caps pass for chrome. You can actually see yourself in them.

Polishing all my stainless for years with final sanding with 1500 wet paper using WD40 to keep it wet then buff on a machine I made up myself out of an 3/4hp motor and an arbor for Buffing wheels. It takes patience and a little skill to make em look like chrome

I wet sanded with 600,900,1200, and 1500 paper along the length of the trim and then polished ninety degrees to the sanding. I used white and red rouge polishing compound on a medium and soft cotton wheel on my bench grinder. Not a perfect result but very good. I have some new repro trim and the original I polished looks better.