polishing a mod

[vapdivrr]

hey guys, have a few ss mods and over time they have accumulated a few minor scratches. whats the best way to get these out? I have heard something about cape cod cleaning cloths, does anyone know if these just polish or do they actually take out some scratches? also another product I have heard about is sharks hide compound, any know about this one ? thanks

 

[skymyrka]

if the scratches are minor and surface is uncoated metal, you may have some luck with bar keeper's friend. apply with a paper towel. rub along with the metal grain. later on may coat with stainless steel cleaner to keep free of finger prints, etc..

 

[vapdivrr]

if the scratches are minor and surface is uncoated metal, you may have some luck with bar keeper's friend. apply with a paper towel. rub along with the metal grain. later on may coat with stainless steel cleaner to keep free of finger prints, etc..

thanks, they are very shallow and minor, and the surface is uncoated. its a polished mod, very shiny. will give it a try.

 

[skymyrka]

For superficial scratches this is the best way I know. Been using bar keepers friend for many years (in a kitchen mainly), and that actually what helps me to keep maintain new look to my stainless steel pots/pans/appliances surfaces, etc.

If that doesn't work, your only next option would be to sand down the surface. For valuable items you can find a jeweler that will do that for you. Can also try a DIY, but no load sand paper in super super super fine grit (like 2500 and up) is not easy to find. Will have to follow up with a polisher to smooth out final surface.

 

[Roncgizmo]

Fist, what is it made of? Brass, aluminum, stainless? It really depends on the metal and how soft it is. if it's aluminum and you clean
it with a harder compound made for stainless it's going to look worse then it does now. if it's a soft metal like brass or aluminum and you can rinse it under water try tooth paste (not the gel type) I've used it on silver, gold, brass, and aluminum with some good results.

 

[Djdamienk]

Cape Cod polishing cloths work great! I used it to remove minor scratches on shiny mods.

 

[djslik]

Just did this last night to my stainless Ehpro. Put a crappy carto on your mod, throw that into your electric drill chuck, spin at whatever speed you feel comfortable with and hand sand to whatever finish you like. Gives you a more consistent finish and it's way faster than hand sanding. If you have a drill press even better.

I like a brushed stainless look so I went with 320 grit paper available at home depot. Make sure to remove any firing buttons if it is side fire. If you want the wetsand stuff go to autozone or pep boys or any auto store and they will have up to 2000 grit or higher. Trust me if you go from 320 all the way up to 2000 grit you will have a chrome like finish. I did that to restore a beat up scratched up stainless revolver and now it almost looks like it's nickel plated.

 

[skymyrka]

JPut a crappy carto on your mod, throw that into your electric drill chuck, spin at whatever speed you feel comfortable with and hand sand to whatever finish you like. Gives you a more consistent finish and it's way faster than hand sanding. If you have a drill press even better.

Genius!!! Awesome tip. Thanks!!!

 

[djslik]

I just polished my Brass M16 clone from fasttech.

320/400/600/1000/2000/Metal Polish

Took about 10 minutes using my milwaukee corded drill.

BEFORE


AFTER

 

[mezzio]

I'd recommend looking up polishing and checking out some youtube videos. If you just want to buff out some light surface scratches, can't go wrong with Mothers, it will usually do a good job. If that doesn't work, and you want to smooth that surface down some, you're probably going to want to try a harder compound such as emery on a wheel, which takes some patience and technique, especially if it's a hard metal like Stainless. If that still doesn't work, you'll want to sand it down, and that's where things can get touchy. Under no circumstances would I ever use 2500 grit sandpaper, you'll have just as much luck rubbing the thing on a piece of leather, it's a multi step process once you start sanding metals to get a clean, professional shine to it. I personally do all my polishing with a dremel and the attached "pencil" kit (the flex extension), an EZ change shaft, buffing wheels, and a whole bunch of 1/2" felt wheels with various compounds (usually emery, stainless, white rouge and jewelers rouge - used in that order), finally finished off with some Mothers polish and a microfiber towel.

Here's the results of some stuff I've done just in the past couple weeks (click pictures for full size)

Bolt for Remington 870 12g Shotgun:

From left to right - Stock coating, coating removed, smoothed and shining

Muffler from an RC Buggy:

From left to right - Stock painted, Paint removed, Smooth and shiny. In the 2nd pic you'll see the buffing wheels I talked about, they're different grits to get you from a rough to smooth finish. This was an especially hard project because the aluminum was EXTREMELY soft, so too much in one spot would literally start deforming it.

and because this is an e-cigarette forum, here's my silver bullet, it used to be black, within a couple weeks, it started chipping, so I just took the finish off and polished it up. You'll notice I left the paint around the button because I didn't want to mess the button itself up, lol.



The biggest problem I'm having with the SB is I handle it all the time, so the shine fades rather quick, if I buff it quick with some mothers, it almost glows

 

[djslik]

Under no circumstances would I ever use 2500 grit sandpaper, you'll have just as much luck rubbing the thing on a piece of leather, it's a multi step process once you start sanding metals to get a clean, professional shine to it.

Please elaborate this statement. Even though your method is thorough and provides a good result there is nothing wrong with using 2500 grit sand paper on metals. The way I polished my tube is similar to the way I finish wood on a lathe. So unless you can justify not using 2500 grit sand paper then you are spreading misinformation.

There is more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[mezzio]

What I said is I would never use it... and my comparison to 2500grit sandpaper to a piece of leather is actually quite accurate. I'm not trying to spread misinformation, I never said it wouldn't get a shine, I said I wouldn't use it. I was also correct that simply sanding down a piece of metal with 2500 grit paper without doing some prep, like using a rougher grit first to smooth the surface and remove scratches, will yield a substandard result.

Yes there is more than one way to skin a cat, and when someone asks how to polish something, many different answers will be given with many different methods. One person might like sanding, that's one method, if thats what they like, more power to them. I use my method after more than a decade of trial and error polishing, knowing that it's relatively quick and produces some outstanding results, I offered it up as a solution, anyone who wants to use it may do so, if they don't, it doesn't hurt my feelings.

 

[djslik]

No the advice you gave is "under NO circumstance would you use 2500 grit sandpaper". It seems that you are advising people not to use 2500 grit sandpaper because somehow it is not suitable for polishing. You only clarified that statement after I asked, so yes some people might get mis-informed about the use of 2500 grit sandpaper for polishing.

Either way I agree with your method and have used your method for other things.

 

[Porksmuggler]

No the advice you gave is "under NO circumstance would you use 2500 grit sandpaper". It seems that you are advising people not to use 2500 grit sandpaper because somehow it is not suitable for polishing. You only clarified that statement after I asked, so yes some people might get mis-informed about the use of 2500 grit sandpaper for polishing.

Either way I agree with your method and have used your method for other things.

Seriously, what's your problem, that's not even his quote. He said "Under no circumstances would I ever use 2500 grit sandpaper"
What's to misunderstand about the word "I", it's his personal preference, and I doubt anyone but you is reading it as something that's wrong. It's clear he's saying there's not much point in using 2500, which he is completely correct about...

 

[mezzio]

No the advice you gave is "under NO circumstance would you use 2500 grit sandpaper". It seems that you are advising people not to use 2500 grit sandpaper because somehow it is not suitable for polishing. You only clarified that statement after I asked, so yes some people might get mis-informed about the use of 2500 grit sandpaper for polishing.

Either way I agree with your method and have used your method for other things.

You're concentrating on the wrong key word... the key word is not "NO", it's "I" and as you wrote it "YOU", which is 100% correct, I (and me) would not use sandpaper under any circumstances.

I did not mean for my post to come across me saying it shouldn't be used, and I'm sorry to anyone who thinks that's what I meant by it.

 

[dePeatrick]

I'd recommend looking up polishing and checking out some youtube videos. If you just want to buff out some light surface scratches, can't go wrong with Mothers, it will usually do a good job. If that doesn't work, and you want to smooth that surface down some, you're probably going to want to try a harder compound such as emery on a wheel, which takes some patience and technique, especially if it's a hard metal like Stainless. If that still doesn't work, you'll want to sand it down, and that's where things can get touchy. Under no circumstances would I ever use 2500 grit sandpaper, you'll have just as much luck rubbing the thing on a piece of leather, it's a multi step process once you start sanding metals to get a clean, professional shine to it. I personally do all my polishing with a dremel and the attached "pencil" kit (the flex extension), an EZ change shaft, buffing wheels, and a whole bunch of 1/2" felt wheels with various compounds (usually emery, stainless, white rouge and jewelers rouge - used in that order), finally finished off with some Mothers polish and a microfiber towel.

Yes indeed, I've removed scratches from stainless steel, copper and brass and there is no short cut, you have to start rough and finish smooth and there is really no way of skipping steps along the way.

Btw, what do you consider best for keeping the shine, mineral oil or carnauba wax, or indeed if either prolong the finish at all?