Polishing Stainless Trim

[Racer57]

What horsepower is your buffer and will it take the 240/320 grit sanding marks out?  Mine is 1 hp.  I find that if I put as much pressure on the piece as I'd like, it really slows the machine down.

Get a smaller buffing wheel.

[70/6chall]

Hi guys, just a little story of how I approached my stainless and aluminum trim dilemma. After I had the car last painted, in the late 90's, the poorly presentable stainless trim really brought the looks of the car down, especially up close. So I decided to polish it myself, bad idea, this stuff is really time consuming to complete the steps and if your not careful one can actually ruin a good piece, not saying a DIYer can't do it with a little patience and perseverance. Guess I just got a little frustrated and opted out. I took a weekend and pulled all the trim from the car Which has all of the SE trim package. Gathered it all up and had it professionally polished. Surprisingly it wasn't as expensive as I thought, but it was fair priced.also threw in the headlight bezels and the rear SE trim panel. I guess my call, but it did make a big difference. I did polish grill eggcrate surround and both side gutter trim myself on the car. They came out nice after all. Thanks for reading gang,   Al

[Mr Lee]

Thanks for all the tips.
I heard about wet sanding with WD-40 but never tried it.  Maybe i'll give it a whirl. I definitely think wet sanding is the way to go, especially when using the finer grits.
Also thought about getting a smaller buffing wheel but wondered about the trade-off.  Smaller wheel should give it more power, but a little less speed at the circumference of the wheel.
I also read somewhere that putting too much compound on the wheel at a time can be bad.  A little at a time, often, is better so you don't load it up, and I think I did that to the point that it became less effective. 
Gonna give it another go. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[autoxcuda]

I wetsand with water. 320->400->600 grit

I use a rubber impregnated deburring wheel. I can go to 320 typically after that.

You need to go one step further than 320. Absolutely don't stop with 240 grit.

Thanks for all the tips.
I heard about wet sanding with WD-40 but never tried it.  Maybe i'll give it a whirl. I definitely think wet sanding is the way to go, especially when using the finer grits.
Also thought about getting a smaller buffing wheel but wondered about the trade-off.  Smaller wheel should give it more power, but a little less speed at the circumference of the wheel.
I also read somewhere that putting too much compound on the wheel at a time can be bad.  A little at a time, often, is better so you don't load it up, and I think I did that to the point that it became less effective. 
Gonna give it another go. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[usraptor]

When I did all the trim on my '70 'Cuda like Alan stated if I had a dent that I needed to fix I first hammer and dollied it out; I then went to a file and then 80 grit and so on. If no dents, I just started with whatever grit would easily remove the scratch.  I used water with one or two drops of liquid dish soap.  This really worked great.  Unlike others, I didn't stop at 1500 but went to 2000 and then 3000 before using the buffing wheel and Eastwood buffing compounds.  My SS trim now almost looks like it was chrome plated. However, it did take hours and hours of work.  Probably my least favorite part of the entire restoration.