Finishing Stainless steel

[tnjind]

redmule1154,
What do you use om the inline sander, scotchbrite?

[redmule1154]

I use a course emery cloth paper to start and depending on what you are trying to match you can smooth it out with a medium paper. Depending on what part of the run the sheet metal went through the graining machine at the factory depends on what grit you end up with. First run material is a courser grain than the end run. Buy a ream of the emery cloth paper because you do have to change it often. The sander takes 1/3 sheets. I have used regular sand paper (80 grit ) but it does not last very long at all. In a pinch it works though. If you get one and as you work with it you'll see what works for you the best.

[Samurai Dave]

your answer to removing heat traces is "pickling paste". careful its highly acidic. wear glasses and gloves

I've used pickling paste. It will remove most, but not all of the heat traces. Certainly better that nothing. At a minumum it will require less sanding, wirebrushing, or Scotch Bright time. The one I used is called Compound 302 by Arcal Chemicals.http://www.arcalchem.com/Pages/Com302.html

The back-side of the weld will look pretty nasty (unless it is back-gassed with Argon) as the back of the stainless puddle reacts with the atmosphere. In order to reduce this effect, try Solar Flux - Type B. http://www.solarflux.com/Graphics/we...OLAReprint.pdf Only make a single pass, or you need to reapply more. If the shape of the member is simple, then back-gas. Howver, when dealing with complex shapes and intersections, Solar Flux can save lots of back-gas set-up time.

[etonline]

A 2B finish is "This is the most common finish produced and called for on sheet material. It is brighter than 2D and is semi-reflective. It is commonly used for most deep drawing operations, and is more easily polished to the final finished required than is a 2D finish."

A number 4 finish is like a sink. It used to be called a 'dairy finish'. It is a UNI-directional surface meaning it runs in one direction not random.

The ss should be sanded to about 120 or 150 then the sanding hooks taken off with a surface conditioning belt, which scotch brite is one brand. And again it should be uni directional.

Hope this helps. Check here for more info

http://www.askzn.co.za/tech/tech_finishes.htm

Later