Note: thread created seperately as it may be of interest outside my project. I am building an aluminium frame for my project (see my sig) and i want to create a mirror finish to it, in a similar quality to this. However, the product that they heavily pimp in the guide is very expensive. Is there any product or method you can recomend me that will acheilve similar results, but without spending quite as much?
That's not too expensive, 30 euros is about £20, you aren't going to get a finish like that any cheaper
he's got ya thats a relatively cheep way to polish, looking at your frame those pop rivets are going to give you issues (there will be a little "halo" around htem where the paper or polishing rag won't fit) which means you either polish it before you pop rivet or uhh don't use them. If you have access to a bench grinder, you can throw on buffing wheels and use tripoli and rouge after the sanding to get a cheaper finish.
They arent rivets, they are bolts, so il just polish before i bolt it together. If that is genuinely the cheapest way to get that finish, i will fork out i guess.
Alternatively you could use bright annealed stainless steel which comes pre-finished, but its 3-4 times heavier than aluminium and a shitload more expensive [edit] just seen your thread on the project and realised you've already bought all your angle - oops !
Johnny Napalm do they have stainless steel stock in extruded forms? I've never seen extruded stainless steel forms. Anyways yah if you have a buffing wheel the tripoli and rouge way might be a little faster and save the armstrength.
What about using silver window tint? I'm guessing you can get a whole mess of the stuff for under $15USD. It'll be a whole lot less elbow pain as well. -Lemur 6
that buffing wheel will do it. Start with an 6 or 800 girt sand paper, then go up to 1000 and then on to wet sanding. From there, use the buffing wheel with dremel's compound to get a decent finish. then go to hand polishing with a good store bought polish(i like one called maas). often times with the dremel polishing tools it will jump and create minor "waves" and such on the surface that you will have to buff out. I used this method for lapping my heat sink and it came out with a mirror finish. Granted it'll take a while....but it gets the job done and will cost fairly little.
You could also get it show chrome for relatively not so expensive depending on the square inches you have to do and chrome is chrome Btw the case in the pic looks great but the size and the polished effect makes it look like a toaster I wouldn't want my case first impression to be a toaster
Polishing to a mirror finish is not that difficult, but takes a lot of patience and the proper tools. The most important part is making your work flat. Through the entire process it has to be kept flat or the flaws will show up more and more as the finish gets smoother and smoother. For example, polishing the pump supports and all of its trappings on BaDassumption started out with the pieces of aluminum being sanded on a belt sander... 50 grit, 80, 120, 220 and finally 320. They were then polished with eight inch wheels... first a sisal wheel and then a stitched cotton wheel with the proper compounds. The finish polish will wait until the project's just about finished because I can't think of anything that's easier to scratch and more disappointing when it happens than polished aluminum that took hours to get that way. Well, maybe your eyeballs... As an example of what the polishing process will do, the bezel with the grilles that all of this is attached to has been sanded up to 220 grit. This is the polisher I used... The stitched cotton wheel is on the left... the one on the right is a loose cotton wheel for finish polishing... the sisal wheel isn't mounted in this picture.
Wow thats nice work. I was only planning to polish when it was completely done, but i might need a way to protect the finish. I dont think i will have too much trouble as all my surfaces are flat. im not affraid to put the work in, as ive put alot into making the case already, so i might aswell go all the way.
Everything these guys have said is correct but.... Dont Dont Dont Start sanding at 50 grit! OMG ..... Geez do you want to have any material left! ... the only time you realy have to sand is if you have a scratch of some sort and need to get it out b4 you polish ! usually the sanding will give you a real unifrom polsihing this really needs to be done on larger surfaces! The bars on my case are 3/8" aluminum rod and i didnt' touch them with any sandpapaer!! waste of some serious time (unless you have some scrathced to get out!)! take it straight to the bufffing wheel! make sure you use a buffing compound of some sort it has the gritty substance in it to do the polishing and sanding! [/IMG] [/IMG] In this picture you can see some scratched on the bottom that arnt notciable except on a camera ? but they are there never less! if i wanted to get those out i will start with 180 grit then go to 220 then 300. then to the buffing wheel after that!
I've found 50 grit to be a great place to start with mill finish aluminum. Granted, I'm working with 3/8' and 1/2" stock... but the proof is in the pudding... that's how most of the pieces in my picture were done. As was the front bezel (which started as 3/4" thick aluminum). 80 grit just took too long on many of the pieces. But you're right if the pieces are thinner and already quite flat... it depends on the work...
Yeah i am not doubting you at all i see that you deal with alot of mill work and i would most definately expect the grade to be tougher and maybe al little more scratched! but for everday consumer's buying aluminum it usually is pretty soft from my knowledgeand expeirence.
Got any example of the finish this produces? didn't get back much from google. Any idea if i can get it in the uk?
