Irish Mini Owners Club

Hi Gang.
Looking to see if anyone has polished Stainless Steel from its bare state to close to a mirror finish.
What they found worked for them and what products used.
I have looked through the web and Im none the wiser.
Im trying to polish a flat bar for a small project Im working on.
Cheers
E

Is this for the 4 Cibie Oscars on the front of the poor 850?

Alright Lad,
I’ve polished a lot of the engine components for my RX7 from scratch its a long process and involves a lot of wet and dry sanding to bring the metal to the mirror finish, Stainless is easier than un treated steel but you could follow the process without the sand paper, treatment and buffing normally does the job, but if doing flat steel,

Here are the steps I used:
- Depending on the imperfections in the surface you will determine what grit paper you start with, I started with 600 grit for my UIM on the RX and moved upwards
- Gradually as I sanded the complete part I moved from 600 to 1000, to 1200 then 1600 all wet and dried
- You will see as you progress that the metal becomes smoother and all imperfections will start to be removed.
- Finally I used a metalpolish (Autosol) to buff the smoothened metal to a mirror finish.
To be honest its a lot of manual work but its worth it in the end

Before:

Just After sanding and 1st buffing completed:

And the other parts I’ve done including my turbo 


hope this helps,

Mark

Nice results but too much work, you need to get yourself some 3M Radial Bristle Discs, I use them on gold and silver, lots of different sizes and grades. Use them with a flex shaft or a dremel, then polish with a rouge and mop.

hughesmarkie wrote:Alright Lad,
I’ve polished a lot of the engine components for my RX7 from scratch its a long process and involves a lot of wet and dry sanding to bring the metal to the mirror finish, Stainless is easier than un treated steel but you could follow the process without the sand paper, treatment and buffing normally does the job, but if doing flat steel,

Here are the steps I used:
- Depending on the imperfections in the surface you will determine what grit paper you start with, I started with 600 grit for my UIM on the RX and moved upwards
- Gradually as I sanded the complete part I moved from 600 to 1000, to 1200 then 1600 all wet and dried
- You will see as you progress that the metal becomes smoother and all imperfections will start to be removed.
- Finally I used a metalpolish (Autosol) to buff the smoothened metal to a mirror finish.
To be honest its a lot of manual work but its worth it in the end


hope this helps,

Mark

Cheers Mark
Nice work ...looks Fab... Mine is a simple piece thank god..must get my hands on some finner wet and dry and try and track down some metal polish..
Thanks
Eamonn

The Marcos Graveyard wrote:Nice results but too much work, you need to get yourself some 3M Radial Bristle Discs, I use them on gold and silver, lots of different sizes and grades. Use them with a flex shaft or a dremel, then polish with a rouge and mop.

Cheers TMG
Tracked down a wheel grit is a bit high (120) so for the size of the job going the slow painfull route...
Thanks
Eamonn

Billy wrote:Is this for the 4 Cibie Oscars on the front of the poor 850?

Billy id have to upgrade the front suspension first to take the weight of the 4 Cibies then to keep the car balanced do the rear suspension... then think about upgrading the charging system to power the lights then I guess my poor 850 would not have enough CCs to power the upgraded charging system so a engine upgrade would then be in order ...

Think I will just stick to the 2 candles supplied as standard