doctorsbro
Well-Known Member
Well i hae been doing some work on my brewstand and here is what i have come up with. Alot of people on here use the medium and fine grit gator grit surface prep pads and then use the felt polishing pads on an angle grinder . Going from the fine grit pad to polishing with the lowes compound will not remove the swirl marks caused by the fine pads, the fine pads are far to course to go straight to polishing unless you buy a grit based greaseless compound which cannot be used on the cheap felt pad that lowes sells, that also brings up the fact that the 13,000rpm+ of an angle grinder is far too fast for any kind of polishing, it dries up and burns the compound up waaaaaay to fast, compounds are meant to stay greasy for the duration of the polishing and slowly dry and buff off, using an angle grinder you will notice that it dries up almost emediately if you dont put so much pressure on the grinder to slow it down considerably which will cause your grinders armeture to burn up rather quickly, also running the polishing pad dry will in turn also create swirl marks heavier than the compounds ability to remove.
Sure this process of the gator grit pads and lowes compound and polishing pads have been used , it will put a shine on a keg or some stainless but if your shooting for a swirl free mirror finish , it will not work and i have come up with a better option.
First for the person wanting to go the gator grit route you have to purchase the following
$19-2 packs medium grit pads
$19-2 packs fine grit pads
$12-2 packs polishing pads
$15-backer disk for grinder to accept polishing pads and surface prep pads
$10- for 2 bars of compound(tiny bars)
-------------------
$75 plus the trip to the store for A TON OF WORK and a low quality finish
I will be using the following stuff
first instead of using the "surface prep pads" you can use a greaseless compound on a sisal wheel adapted to a $40 variable speed buffer from harbor freight, the greaseless compounds can be purchased in grits just like sandpaper but work much much faster and easier, each 3lb bar of this compound is $10, you need to go all the way up to 600 grit before any polishing can be done, so youd need 3-4 grits depending on how bad your scratches are that need removed, and you will need a new sisal wheel for each grit at $5 each for 6" wheels
Then to polishing, you will use a dedicated stailess polishing compound on a sisal wheel and then a green compound on a cotton buff to create a mirror finish, also between each step the part needs thouroughly cleaned with acetone from your local drug store to remove the previous compounds.
Inlcuding the cost of the buffer from harbor freight, the buffing wheel adapter and all of the supplies it comes to about $120 and will be enough material to do ALOT of polishing. All of these things can be found at caswell plating, and no i dont work there, its the cheapest place i have found...
Anybody that has used the gator grit stuff can admit that its back breaking work thats pretty unpleasant doing, the gator grit pads dont last long, also the gator grit pads you can only use the edge of it since it has the steel retainer in the center and also that the polishing pads come apart rather quickly while using them. These sisal wheels will last years and could polish all of your friends stuff etc for beer.....
Sure this process of the gator grit pads and lowes compound and polishing pads have been used , it will put a shine on a keg or some stainless but if your shooting for a swirl free mirror finish , it will not work and i have come up with a better option.
First for the person wanting to go the gator grit route you have to purchase the following
$19-2 packs medium grit pads
$19-2 packs fine grit pads
$12-2 packs polishing pads
$15-backer disk for grinder to accept polishing pads and surface prep pads
$10- for 2 bars of compound(tiny bars)
-------------------
$75 plus the trip to the store for A TON OF WORK and a low quality finish
I will be using the following stuff
first instead of using the "surface prep pads" you can use a greaseless compound on a sisal wheel adapted to a $40 variable speed buffer from harbor freight, the greaseless compounds can be purchased in grits just like sandpaper but work much much faster and easier, each 3lb bar of this compound is $10, you need to go all the way up to 600 grit before any polishing can be done, so youd need 3-4 grits depending on how bad your scratches are that need removed, and you will need a new sisal wheel for each grit at $5 each for 6" wheels
Then to polishing, you will use a dedicated stailess polishing compound on a sisal wheel and then a green compound on a cotton buff to create a mirror finish, also between each step the part needs thouroughly cleaned with acetone from your local drug store to remove the previous compounds.
Inlcuding the cost of the buffer from harbor freight, the buffing wheel adapter and all of the supplies it comes to about $120 and will be enough material to do ALOT of polishing. All of these things can be found at caswell plating, and no i dont work there, its the cheapest place i have found...
Anybody that has used the gator grit stuff can admit that its back breaking work thats pretty unpleasant doing, the gator grit pads dont last long, also the gator grit pads you can only use the edge of it since it has the steel retainer in the center and also that the polishing pads come apart rather quickly while using them. These sisal wheels will last years and could polish all of your friends stuff etc for beer.....