Stainless trim polishing
#1
Anybody here doing any stainless trim polishing? I'm thinking about getting one of the Eastwood kits so I can polish some of the trim. Bought the hood edge piece and it was a piece of junk, didn't fit and deep grind marks on the ends. Would like to polish up the original piece. Any tips?
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#2
Bob I have not done any personally.

I did have a friend who did some stainless polishing for his first time on his car and it came out really nice.

It will be interesting to follow your success.
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#3
(02-06-2014, 01:53 PM)bob.harlan Wrote: Anybody here doing any stainless trim polishing? I'm thinking about getting one of the Eastwood kits so I can polish some of the trim. Bought the hood edge piece and it was a piece of junk, didn't fit and deep grind marks on the ends. Would like to polish up the original piece. Any tips?

FYI for whatever it's worth I just a cpl months ago finished polishing all my trim on my car. Stainless & aluminum pieces and chrome. I purchased Eastwood's 1 horsepower buffer & their buff kit that goes with it ( wheels, compound ect) plus extra compound for chrome and extra wheels. I spent many hours working on all my shiny trim pieces and some of mine were to say rough at best. I started off with a couple pieces and Eastwood's trim dolly anvil & hammer and pounded out the dents ect being careful and working slowly then moving on to the buffer. Started with a rougher wheel and more aggressive compound moving to a finer wheel and compound until finally hand polishing all pieces with Autosol metal polish. If I must say so myself even the very rough pieces shined up amazingly. I had a couple pieces that really were true 50 footers for them to look acceptable and are now more like a 2 to 3 footer before you see the imperfections ( IE scratches that just cant be removed) In my opinion it is a great tool and no one should be without buffer mounted on a tool stand and also have a hand buffer IE some of those foam balls, cones ect plus a good supply of Autosol and micro fiber, cotton rags for hand polishing. I even did the chrome trim around my fold down rear seat while I had it out and painted it & replaced the carpet. I also cleaned up and buffed the scratches out of my gas cap. The things one can buff & polish is only limited to their imagination. On a safety note however don't learn as I did the hard way that the buffer wheels can indeed grab you treasured trim piece and wrap it into a pretzel whilst beating the crap out of your chest and what felt like ripping one of my nipples off then slamming it on the floor skipping it across my shop floor, all of which happens in a blink of an eye. You then cuss and drink a beer then spend 4-1/2 hours straightening you mangled piece. So with that said get a junk piece off some junker car in a wrecking yard and practice on it buffing it from different angles and feeding it into the buffer wheel from different directions to get the feel of how it acts. Also wear good face protection-safety glasses with side shields at a minimum, wear good clean leather gloves ( your trim will get warm part of the buff process) and remember no loose clothing. The buffer can and will grab the loose clothing and wrap you up in it faster than you think, I have not had it happen to me but I am a retired fireman and had to extricate several people from such a predicament over my 15 years with the department. Be careful please. But lastly don't be afraid to do this yourself, it is not that hard and very satisfying to see the results and Eastwood's equipment is and has been very good with a great warranty and customer service. I own their 220 volt MIG & plasma cutter and the sand/soda blaster of theirs and they all work great. If I can offer any more advice or tips from my projects and what I did please don't hesitate to drop me a line on the site.
YLWHRSE
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#4
THANK YOU YLWHRSE. I AM GETTING READY TO START THAT PHASE OF POLISHING CHROME AND THAT IS EXCELLENT ADVICE. I KNOW THE BEER TOOK THE PAIN AWAY, BUT HAS YOUR NIPPLE RECOVERED? 578254
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#5
Thanks for the input Ylwhrse. Sounds like the way to go since reproduction parts are not the best and NOS parts are not in my budget. Also the polishing material can be used on some other projects I'm working on.
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#6
LOL yes indeed the nipple healed and the beer helped with the pain of that. I felt a little dumbass for a little while thinking I was going to have to try and find a used piece to replace it but it all worked out good. I too was disappointed in aftermarket pieces as fit and finish was very very poor. You would think even those that are supposedly made from factory tooling would be better, but they just are not very good. I ordered and returned several different ones before I decided to dig in and work on my own. I agree the nOS pieces are way out of my budget too. I suppose if the pocket book was a bottomless pit or I was doing a restoration for concours it might be a different story. I have the lower body side chrome on my car separating the main body color and the lower black and the 2 worst pieces on the whole car were the ones behind the rear wheels . . . go figure ?? !! :-)
YLWHRSE
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