Thread: st/steel sculpture WIP advice

some more pics,
welded up a frame to hold the curve and twist while making patterns for the side panels,
tacked together and loaded up in my trusty trailer to take to my (completely inadequate) shed,

got it back to my shed and at the moment I'm alternating between fabricating the top of the sculpture and ^%#^&^ grinding and #%**$# polishing the thing,
there seems to be a whole bunch of new products on the market for polishing stainless since I last did it,
my first question please, any suggestions on which ones are best.
cheers

No idea on polishing Stainless Steel, but dam that sure looks impressive!

underfoot,
Great looking sculpture, great to have a mate with the sheet shop as well.
I suggest looking on the web at polishing stainless steel as the info is good and will give you the answers you want.
Noticed your other half in one of your pic's, suggest you have a night out and dinner with her by the body language there.

Regards,
Keith.

I think that person on the balcony is a sculpture. It least she won't eat much.

Hi Underfoot,
Great looking piece, and the maquette is cool too. Congratulations on the commission.
I bought myself a straight shaft grinder, Hitachi brand, also known as a barrel grinder I think. Its the same sort of machine as a 9"grinder, so pretty beefy, but not 90*. I got a tapered spindle to fit and can swap all sorts of mops and wheels. The main ones I use are 3M brand: an abrasive impregnated rubber wheel, supplied to replace wire wheels on a bench grinder; a range of Scotchbrite mops (coarse, med, fine and extra fine), and other cloth and felt wheels, charged with rouge. I use a pink/brown rouge stick, but I think there is a white one specifically for stainless steel.
I thoroughly recommend it for cleaning up and polishing stainless steel, even though its quite an expensive bit of kit.

Cheers,

thanks for the response folks,
Andy, yep, one of those straight grinders is what I need, but the budget means I stick with my angle grinders, (how much are they BTW )
I've used the 3m scotch brite pads (red/med, green/fine) what colour are extrafine?
( the brown rouge buff doesn't seem to remove the green pad scratches)
do you use sisal , stitched or unstitched buffs?

tea lady, yes, that is a sculpture on the balcony, but it is the same dissaproving pose
swmbo takes when I (again) underquote on a sculpture

Hi again,
I thought they were dear, just found them online for $565, and the Makita is dearer again! I baulked at first because I also bought a normal 9" grinder at the time, which was substantially cheaper, and the motor /handle part is basically the same...just a different gearbox.
The advantage though is they don't leave a circular pattern, its a linear action which you can run down a weld or across a surface so the "scratches" are in the same direction. Really good on pipes and rounded corners too. You can borrow mine if you come and get it!!
The Scotchbrite mops are a brownish colour, and the cloth one I use most is stitched sisal I'm pretty sure.
Don't forget Underfoot, when working with stainless don't use wheels, discs, mops, wire brushes etc that are mild steel or have been used on mild steel, as you may impregnate the stuff with rusting particles. I keep them seperate, wire them together with labels. and even have dedicated files. Use a stainless steel wire brush.
I had a nasty incident with a couple of 6m s/s sculptures, where a company was contracted to blast the lower surfaces. They used mild steel shot instead of glass, dirty at that, and completely stuffed the steel. Had to spend days etching the whole surface to remove particles of mild steel imbedded in it, then turn around and re-blast the surface. Even now, 9yrs later, there are specks of rust coming through.

Good luck,

In the crash shop we use the 3m pads for painting. We use the green for coarse stuff and we use Grey pads as fine. The Grey pads are marked as ultra fine and I think they are about 1200 grit.