How To: Stainless Steel Trim Restoration

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My buddy who owns a body shop has found a green wheel on the market that he uses in restoring stainless trim. I will get more info on it today to pass on.
 
WOW, great thread and beautiful work.. you make it look easy. Too easy. For me that is dangerous :)

Grant
 
A couple of little tips that may help someone...
There's a fancy barstool made with a back and arms over a swivel base. Set one up in front of your bench grinder. Proping your elbows along with getting off your feet will make a big difference in how much time you spend there. The deburing ladies at the machine shop would wear out those stools in about 90 days. Better to have the chairs arms and back fall off than your own LOL
Electronic mfgrs and service people have a strap to ground out the static charge too. Its comfortable velcro band can go on wrist, ankle, whatever.
 
Thanks Waggin for an excellent thread! And VERY nice job on the trim! Trim is one thing I have never attempted,but I think I might now be willing thanks to your help!!


Waggin you ROCK!!
 
Great tips redfish.....I kinda like that lil zap once in a while lol takes the boredom out of standing in front of the polisher for hours at a time
RedFish said:
A couple of little tips that may help someone...
There's a fancy barstool made with a back and arms over a swivel base. Set one up in front of your bench grinder. Proping your elbows along with getting off your feet will make a big difference in how much time you spend there. The deburing ladies at the machine shop would wear out those stools in about 90 days. Better to have the chairs arms and back fall off than your own LOL
Electronic mfgrs and service people have a strap to ground out the static charge too. Its comfortable velcro band can go on wrist, ankle, whatever.
Click to expand...
 
Heh, waggin. Can you go into more detail about the aluminum restoration?? Great thread, should be pinned.

obtw, my console top is the brushed metal look with shiney chrome showing through the worn spots. I'd like to remove the rest of the coating and have the chrome look. What should I use to remove the stuff??

thanks
 
Flatlander said:
Heh, waggin. Can you go into more detail about the aluminum restoration?? Great thread, should be pinned.

obtw, my console top is the brushed metal look with shiney chrome showing through the worn spots. I'd like to remove the rest of the coating and have the chrome look. What should I use to remove the stuff??

thanks
Click to expand...

Most of the consoles got a healthy layer of chrome on the areas that needed it. Then the chrome isn't present under the argent paint. The wheel centers are the same. Little or no chrome under the textured coating.
What you see through the wear may be light chrome but is likely just shiney potmetal. I stripped a console top a long time ago. Only choise was fill and sand the pitting and repaint it.
 
Great thread Wag's! I've been fooling around straightening some `68 Barracuda grilles & headlight bezels and I know how tedious it is. I just picked up an inexpensive 3,400 RPM bench polisher from Sears. It has the long shafts and should be good for my needs. I restored a grille shell and bezel using a hand held air tool to polish and I got good results with horrible equipment. I'm going to re-polish those pieces again.

Please post more!
 
RedFish said:
A couple of little tips that may help someone...
Click to expand...


Awesome advice Redfish! I'm setting up a polishing area in my basement next weekend so I can get cracking on my trim. Any & all advice on this would be greatly appreciated. Once I'm set up I'll show the tools I made so far.


Here's an upper grille shell piece I straightened and polished. I'm trying to find the correct blind rivets to re-assemble the pieces once I'm done. You MUST completely dis-assemble the grille shells to get into all the nooks-n-crannies.

Trim_Polishing007-vi.jpg


BTW: Here's a forum that might be of interest for those looking to try & do this like Curtis is showing us:

http://forum.caswellplating.com/
 
another trick is to take and tape up the shafts and the bolts for the buffing wheels in case you slip it will save extra work
 
WOW Wagin! I couldn't put ANY of that stuff on my car, it would make the rest of the car look too crappy! I'm on the edge of my seat to see more transformations!!!
 
It's a good thing that you put beer halfway down the list. If you put it first, most people would not make it that far... LOL...
 
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