Vibratory Aluminum Polishing

[Night_Sky]

Hi,

Looking for some help or recommendations on the best media and chemical polish combinations for small scale vibratory polishing/buffing of small 6061 aluminum parts.

Pieces are machined, sanded and then polished using standard buffing wheels and polishing compounds. Longest step in the process is removing the final light buffing marks - which are never completely gone - and is the biggest time factor in the entire process.

Already experimenting with a small vibratory machine and different combinations but not quite getting there!

- Jon

[sswee]

Re: Vibratory Aluminum Polishing

Have you tried the corn cob or walnut shell with the additives? I haven't used myself but have talked to some that swore by it.
SS

[Night_Sky]

Re: Vibratory Aluminum Polishing

Hi,

Ya have done some experimenting with both corb cob and walnut media, and few different additives: Flitz, Semi-Chrome, Blue Magic. Also have used Linde A which is suppossed to be 0.5 Micron Aluminum Oxide and also a pack of hobbist polish which I assume was 50 Micron Aluminum Oxide - however not sure if it was aluminum oxide or not. Have some 50 Micron Alum Oxide coming and some 50 Micron Silicon Carbide coming.

With the Walnut and Corn Cob media, trying each with Flitz, Semi-Chrome, Blue Magic and finally a run with Linde A - seemed to get to much what I would call surface burnishing/scratching - the media does scratch the surface! Got some smaller grain corn cob 20/40 mesh and the scratching was far less but still apparent almost gives the surface a kind of frosted appearance - thinking about trying some 100 or 200 mesh to see what the difference is.

Also considering instead of using a solid/dry setup going to some sort of a liquid - it would seem if you were to flow water or ? through a system with something like Linde A powder suspended in the solution using the forces created by the vibratory machine it should polish the piece and wouldn't have to be concerned with solid objects pinging into the aluminum.

Anyhow have spent some time researching different companies and web info and get conflicting information so will just need to keep experimenting. Worst case can employ the vibrator in a middle step - will still speed things a bit.

Was hoping would be able to just get some walnut media, throw some Flitz in there and VIOLA! but guess not! Oh well keep playing!

[turbotim23]

Re: Vibratory Aluminum Polishing

Hi I'm looking for the same info.I was thinking you might need different stages.First a dry media for awhile then something softer than aluminum like some kind of plastic media with a liquid aluminum polish added for the last step. Or I wonder if you could buy those big bars of solid compound they use for buffing aluminum with cotton wheels.Shread it into very small peices and try that or maybe add some cotton in with it in the polisher. If you do find something that works,Let me know I got a vibratory polisher on order and would like to try this myself. Thanks [email protected]

[Night_Sky]

Re: Vibratory Aluminum Polishing

Interesting was also thinking along the same lines as yourself - get great results with the buffing wheel and Walter Blue Mirror Finishing Paste - not really a paste though - it is a solid (of course until it is heated) - did discover that it is easily crushed and ground. So that is on the list of experimentations, so combine that with a soft media - and well we shall see!

Later,

- Jon