Hillbillysmith Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 I want to polish a piece of stainless to an absolute mirror finish roughly .1 micron... I found diamond polishing paste but unsure how you use it. Do you put it on a buffing/polishing wheel? Microfiber cloth and hand polish? Special machine?? I was also looking at Mylar polishing sheets that go down to .5 micron. I assume you use these to hand polish.... Do you use them like wet sandpaper?? Thanks. Hillbilly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigfootnampa Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 Stainless steel is pretty hard. If you have a significant amount to polish you'll want to use a power tool. There are stainless steel polish kits sold specifically to finish stainless steel to standard finish levels. Especially for someone who is not very experienced these are a good idea. Shops that do fabrication and have to finish to standard levels of polish also find these kits useful. A mirror polish begins with lower levels of polish and progresses forward to the final levels. To get the higher levels of polish most guys that I know of will use high-powered grinders with buffing wheels and polishing compounds. Diamond pastes might work but I doubt that they would fit into the budget at most shops. Polishing compounds that are specially formulated for stainless steel are the most common solution. Most professional polishers do not use a buffer... too slow... they use a big right angle grinder with a buffing wheel. You can skip a few steps in the pre-polish this way because the final polishing is so powerful and fast... don't try it with any heavy scratches though... you'll just waste time. I have done pretty nice work with just white diamond buffing compound... not quite ultimate polish but pretty close and cheaply and quickly done. I have heard that a little WD40 on the buff helps to get a finer polish faster... I've not yet tried this but I will soon. I hope this helps... experience is the best teacher... you will get better as you go! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 I use a lot of heat treated Stainless in my knives. I mirror polish all of them. I covered how I do it in bp 0235, including all abrasives and buffs and compounds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hillbillysmith Posted January 9, 2013 Author Share Posted January 9, 2013 Bigfootnampa: i appreciate the kind "101" version but metal finishing is nothing new to me, i have just never used diamond paste or these particular Mylar polishing sheets before.... Rich Hale: i am unable to kind that blueprint neither under the blueprint section nor through the search feature.... I am not looking for a 5 page dissertation on how to finish and polish something. I already know that and my attention to detail is good.... I just want to know two things; 1) do you use Mylar polishing sheets "wet" (water/WD40) or "dry"... 2) do you use diamond polishing paste on a microfiber cloth and polish by hand, or to you use it on a powered wheel (if so, what type of wheel).... That's it.... I'm not trying to get out of any research because i have looked for days. On the websites of the manufacturers, other forums talking about this have all been dead ends, even YouTub is dead on the issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted January 9, 2013 Share Posted January 9, 2013 I could provide yoiu a link to the bp but it is not wot you want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
partialretard Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 On 1/8/2013 at 1:03 PM, Rich Hale said: Bad link removed I would love to see a 5 page dissertation about how to finish and polish something... but unfortunately that link takes me to a page with absolutely nothing on it... which is a bummer, because i was looking forward to reading it.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzkill Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 Although it's not in the blueprint section, I believe this link has the info from the original BP: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
partialretard Posted July 6, 2019 Share Posted July 6, 2019 XX XX thank you! interesting choice of buffing compounds... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLAG Posted July 6, 2019 Share Posted July 6, 2019 I believe that the green chromium oxide polish has particles that are half micron size. It is applied to a rotary buffing set up. And it is, usually, the last polishing step used in a series, of buffing compounds. After using it, the steel has a mirror finish. Years back that polishing compound was expensive and carried only by a few dealers. Today it is readily available and at a reasonable price. It works like a charm. SLAG. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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