stainless trim polishing taking forever..

[thesound]

Originally Posted by blacklincoln

thanks for the advice on loading the wheel often and applying a lot of pressure..things are going faster now even though i havent received the sisal wheel yet..i got two pieces done in under three hours..its not gonna break any records but its faster than i was going before and the finished result it what im after..the pieces look really nice..

speaking of.... i almost chickened out on my rockers and 4 foot pieces and went and got a quote for 900.00 to get them all done (6 pieces total)
luckily i asked to see some of their polished work and it looked no where near as nice as the finish on the ones ive done myself..
i grabbed my pieces and left home to prepare myself for a stiff neck coming this month from too much buffin time...

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with how much easier sisal wheels will make your scratch removing process. As far as how much you were quoted: that's just straight up highway robbery. Reason I say this is because if you do this long enough to get a wide variety of different parts under your belt, you'll eventually come to appreciate any occasion where the parts that you get are nice nice and flat, and a-symmetrical. People who do polishing for a living PRAY to get parts like this: they're easy. The guy who gave you that quote was either: A-extremely proud of himself, or B-already had his bills taken care of for the month so he figured he could afford to roll the dice. Either way, once you get your stuff done you can silently bask in the glory of the idea: "I just did at LEAST $900 worth of work here. Go me."

[mpierich]

Originally Posted by thesound

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with how much easier sisal wheels will make your scratch removing process. As far as how much you were quoted: that's just straight up highway robbery. Reason I say this is because if you do this long enough to get a wide variety of different parts under your belt, you'll eventually come to appreciate any occasion where the parts that you get are nice nice and flat, and a-symmetrical. People who do polishing for a living PRAY to get parts like this: they're easy. The guy who gave you that quote was either: A-extremely proud of himself, or B-already had his bills taken care of for the month so he figured he could afford to roll the dice. Either way, once you get your stuff done you can silently bask in the glory of the idea: "I just did at LEAST $900 worth of work here. Go me."

When I was starting out, I did an intake plenum that had a lot of flat surfaces. You're right, they are easier to work on, but they had better be good because everything shows up. Well, I couldn't get them perfect but charged the guy accordingly, and he was most understanding. When he called a big "professional" shop they wanted to charge him another $750 because it had "already been worked on" - all they had to do was to color it up properly - I already had it level and scratch-free. Robbery.

I've been jacking up my prices just to get some time off...it's working beautifully, lol...

[blacklincoln]

i feel for you guys who do this for a living...
its definitely a dirty job..lol

[pickleboy]

hehehe thats why its called the "black art"

[blacklincoln]

man im so glad i found this forum..you guys are life savers..i would have buffed myself into eternity..

the fist thing i was clueless on was that my stainless is chrome plated which was taking me tons of time and sand paper to get through..thanks to the advice on the muriatic acid stripping (which works great by the way) i can get straight buffing the stainless now..

the second thing was the sisal wheel...night and day difference..and you guys were exactly right no need to go higher than 800 on the paper..

also thanks to caswell products their compounds work great..(i ordered the super black and white) i can believe how the white cuts and polishes so fast and the result is super bright..to top it all off the sticks were gigantic and should last me forever...lol

[mpierich]

Glad things are working better for you now. Usually all it takes is the proper tools.

I hate to be a party pooper, but if the trim is plated, are you sure it's stainless underneath?

[blacklincoln]

ya, its stainless...i know a lot of lincoln guys who have stripped it by sanding but it just takes too long..its just a thin layer over the stainless for scratch resistance..