Stainless steel polishing

If its anything like mine then the flue when hot would melt your fingers. I will stick by my advise in my first post. Polish up with grinder and flapper disc.
 
The twin wall should not get hot enough to get tempering colours. The Selkirk Metabestos stuff we have is stainless both inner and outer.

The chrome mirror finish is not plated on but is the effect of the clear oxide of the chrome in the stainless. The electro polishing I mentioned earlier will put a mirror finish even onto the hammered and heatscaled surface of one of my forgings. The forging process (and folding, rolling, scuffing) contaminates the surface of the stainless with iron transferred from the tooling. Hence the passivation needed to chemically strip the iron from the surface, leaving just the chrome and nickel molecules. The electropolishing then works by a reverse plating procedure to remove the peaks of the microscopic scratches and so smooth and flatten the surface which reduces the refraction and makes it reflective like a mirror. Stainless gets its stainless properties from the layer of chrome oxide on its surface. This is why if oxygen is excluded from it it will rust. The pickling paste is the most dangerous chemical I have ever used, horrendous stuff. Look up Hydrofluoric Acid and steer well clear.

Here endeth the brief version.

I would only use a flap disc and grinder as the last resort if the scotchbrite is not aggressive enough to hide the scuff marks. The heavy scratches from even a fine 180grit flap disc are a bugger for attracting and holding dust and finger marks. Unless you make a "feature" of the arcing scratch marks you will have a devil of a job removing them. Better try a flap wheel (they come in different grades of Aluminium oxide, zirconium or scotchbrite) in an electric drill or die grinder, and again like the scotchbrite, you can at least keep the scratches in line if you are careful. The basic rule is the least amount of abrasion and metal removal the better.

With stainless you must always use virgin discs and wheels, never ones which have been used on mild steel because of the contamination of the stainless by iron transfer. Not so critical indoors if always a reasonably dry atmosphere, not so good if you boil up your pan of vinegar for chutney on top of the wood burner...

Alan
 
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Passivate, pickle and scotch brite. If you want to get to mirror finish you will have a whole lot of pain. We have fein polishing kit and still it is still the least favourite job I can give anyone. Polishing mops and paste work but take forever. Try Yorkshire polishing as they can do it fairly reasonable.
 
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