Polishing Stainless Railing?

[Den_FL]

I'm wondering if anybody has experience in welding and polishing stainless railing like those used on boats.

Currently i'm cleaning/blending the welds with a DA starting with 80 and then jumping to 220. I finish that with 320 by hand. It's slow going, tears up DA pads and definitely makes more work for me during the polishing stage...which also needs improvement

What i'm wondering is if the greaseless 80 grit would be able to knock down the welds which are very thin where a tube is fishmouthed into another tube. I'd like to do this without gouging the tubing to much.

For polishing I'm currently using a 8" wheel on a grinder/polisher that has a control for setting the speed and some white. Heavy...but it works.

I've got handed this job at a weld/fab shop i'm working at and I really think there's got to be a better and easier way. The DA method is too time consuming and is generally a pain in the *** . I want to suggest a different approach to this and my boss is open to suggestions.

Any suggestions on tools, pads and compounds would be great

Thanks,
Den

[skiddz]

80 greaseless will knock down those welds a lot quicker than your DA or manual efforts will. It does cut quick so your concerns about gouging the material are definitely warranted. Perhaps some greaseless on a mini-bob or a small spiral "Dremel" sized wheel?

I recently polished an aluminum cooler rack for an ATV and smoothed all the welds out completely with greasless using a very small felt bob, my flex shaft and 80, 180 and 240 grit greaseless. I then followed up with a regular 4" wheel and the 400 and a hand wet-sand with 400 before it went under the buffer. Came out beautiful.

Good luck!

[Den_FL]

Thanks for the reply.

Nice quad! I'm also making a few things for my Raptor. Only got a chance to work on it a few times at the shop. I made a nice stainless rear grab bar for it and i'm currently working on a stainless rear brake res. cover. Next is a aluminum bumper for the front.

[skiddz]

Thx. It's been 3 months in the rebuild.. It's an '87 if you can believe that... Everything is red, polished or chromed. I'm almost scared to take it out in the dirt for fear it'll get scuffed up. heheh