Polishing Stainless Welds.

S

seabeagle

New member
I'm working on a rail project and am looking for an easy way to make the welds look like the ones on the bow rail. I can polish the discoloration on the flat surfaces easily but, the weld takes much more work. The project will have a total of 18 welds, 6 base welds and 12 tee welds. What kind of buffing wheel or compound should I use?
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You have a good hand... your welds look really professional...mine look like chewing gum...

What I did was buy a small 1" band sander from Harbor Freight (cheep one) and a mondo buffing machine (also cheep Harbor Freight) ... I sand the weld as smooth as I can...then buff the daylights out of it...using a rough compound then their stainless compound...that makes it look really nice... not as nice as factory welds but very acceptable.. I think that buffing machine was under a hundred...and the hand held belt sander something like $30....

Joel
SEA3PO
 
SEA3PO":1m6vf4i9 said:
You have a good hand... your welds look really professional...mine look like chewing gum...

What I did was buy a small 1" band sander from Harbor Freight (cheep one) and a mondo buffing machine (also cheep Harbor Freight) ... I sand the weld as smooth as I can...then buff the daylights out of it...using a rough compound then their stainless compound...that makes it look really nice... not as nice as factory welds but very acceptable.. I think that buffing machine was under a hundred...and the hand held belt sander something like $30....

Joel
SEA3PO
Click to expand...

Thanks for the compliment. I'm quite familiar with Harbor Freight tools. That weld was done with their TIG welder. I bought it just for this. I'll take a look at what they got.
 
Use less heat & less fill. ( full-penn not required :wink: )
I would get out the flapper wheel with 220-320grit & clean thoes up. Then polish with a felt bob & finer & finer compound till you get where you like it ! :mrgreen: :beer
 
Ask Joe (of R-Matey). He and Ruth ran a polishing business for many years and know everything there is to know about it. You should see the polished fire hydrants and other objects in their immaculate garage!

Warren
 
well that's a tough join . . .

I guess this is a base/mount weld. Difficult due to the different mass in each donor. I would have turned the mount down so there was better heat transfer.

Now that it's joined I guess you can't put it on a lathe.

I would run the tip around again to pretty it up.

Or run the tip on the fat part to take the edge off and re-flow the existing weld.

Then a stainless brush with some compoud
 
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