kilohertz
Well-Known Member
I am about to build my first brewery setup and found a post about polishing kegs, they look great when they are gleaming, so I started searching for the items mentioned in various posts, mostly stuff coming from Lowes, which we don't have in Canada. I spent most of the weekend shopping around for similar items and found a lot at Canadian Tire and Rona, so I thought I would help out my fellow Canadians with some items that worked for me.
Rona has the Gator products, but only the fine, med, and course pads, polishing pads have long been discontinued, strange.
I finally settled on all products from CDN Tire. Instead of using the Gator pads from Rona, which are $18 for 2, I found sheets of similar material called simulated steel wool, they are actually scotch pad type of material, but thicker and available in 2 different grades at my store, course and medium in a 6x9" pad and a 2 pack is $6, enough for 4 pads, and you can flip them over when they get dull. I bought the backing pad for $6 and cut out the medium stuff to fit the 4.5" backing pad, cut a hole in the center and tried it out. It works awesome for the first pass on a decent keg. Now I used a variac to slow down my angle grinder as it was too fast and was burning/melting the pad with any pressure applied. It turned out to be about half speed that gave the best results. The thing I noticed about these pads is they give a very nice finish on the second pass, with very light pressure, not even the weight of the grinder. On the second pass though, I rubbed some #2 or #3 cutting compound into the disc, and that really brought out a nice shine. After working on this for many hours, I concluded that it is very important to get a nice smooth finish at this stage, before moving on to the cotton polishing wheel.
Once the whole keg had been given the once over with the medium pad in two stages, I moved onto the polishing phase. For this I used the 5" buffing wheel also from CDN Tire. It's $9 or so, I bought 2 and used one for #3 brown, or Tripoli compound, and one for #6 polishing, or I think red was the colour. It is meant for a bench grinder but I drilled out the center hole with a 5/8" drill and then threaded it onto my angle grinder with no backing plate, or lock nut. It is tight threading on so there is no worry of it coming loose. I loaded it with #3 to start and went over the whole keg with a fair amount of pressure, probably slowed the grinder by about 20%. I turned the grinder speed down to about 40% on the variac so that the cotton wheel didn't fly apart. For the second pass, same wheel, no more compound, I went over it again and just tickled the surface, just enough to take off the residue of the first pass. At this point you should be seeing some shine. Final step is a new buffing wheel, loaded with #6 or red polishing compound. Same procedure, once over moderate pressure, second pass, just tickling the surface.
I washed the complete keg when down with BKF (bar keepers friend) also found at CDN Tire ( I was surprised, I thought it may be one of those "only found in the US sort of things) and a final rub with a micro fiber cloth. For my first attempt, I was quite happy with the results, not a "mirror" finish, but totally acceptable. It took a lot of shopping and experimenting but in the end, didn't cost too much. Now I need to return about $200 worth of stuff not needed, and a car polisher which didn't go fast enough or have the right pads for this job. Stainless is hard, much harder than the paint on a car and needs some serious muscle to get it shiny.
Hope this helps someone wanting to find the materials in Canada.
Cheers
Rona has the Gator products, but only the fine, med, and course pads, polishing pads have long been discontinued, strange.
I finally settled on all products from CDN Tire. Instead of using the Gator pads from Rona, which are $18 for 2, I found sheets of similar material called simulated steel wool, they are actually scotch pad type of material, but thicker and available in 2 different grades at my store, course and medium in a 6x9" pad and a 2 pack is $6, enough for 4 pads, and you can flip them over when they get dull. I bought the backing pad for $6 and cut out the medium stuff to fit the 4.5" backing pad, cut a hole in the center and tried it out. It works awesome for the first pass on a decent keg. Now I used a variac to slow down my angle grinder as it was too fast and was burning/melting the pad with any pressure applied. It turned out to be about half speed that gave the best results. The thing I noticed about these pads is they give a very nice finish on the second pass, with very light pressure, not even the weight of the grinder. On the second pass though, I rubbed some #2 or #3 cutting compound into the disc, and that really brought out a nice shine. After working on this for many hours, I concluded that it is very important to get a nice smooth finish at this stage, before moving on to the cotton polishing wheel.
Once the whole keg had been given the once over with the medium pad in two stages, I moved onto the polishing phase. For this I used the 5" buffing wheel also from CDN Tire. It's $9 or so, I bought 2 and used one for #3 brown, or Tripoli compound, and one for #6 polishing, or I think red was the colour. It is meant for a bench grinder but I drilled out the center hole with a 5/8" drill and then threaded it onto my angle grinder with no backing plate, or lock nut. It is tight threading on so there is no worry of it coming loose. I loaded it with #3 to start and went over the whole keg with a fair amount of pressure, probably slowed the grinder by about 20%. I turned the grinder speed down to about 40% on the variac so that the cotton wheel didn't fly apart. For the second pass, same wheel, no more compound, I went over it again and just tickled the surface, just enough to take off the residue of the first pass. At this point you should be seeing some shine. Final step is a new buffing wheel, loaded with #6 or red polishing compound. Same procedure, once over moderate pressure, second pass, just tickling the surface.
I washed the complete keg when down with BKF (bar keepers friend) also found at CDN Tire ( I was surprised, I thought it may be one of those "only found in the US sort of things) and a final rub with a micro fiber cloth. For my first attempt, I was quite happy with the results, not a "mirror" finish, but totally acceptable. It took a lot of shopping and experimenting but in the end, didn't cost too much. Now I need to return about $200 worth of stuff not needed, and a car polisher which didn't go fast enough or have the right pads for this job. Stainless is hard, much harder than the paint on a car and needs some serious muscle to get it shiny.
Hope this helps someone wanting to find the materials in Canada.
Cheers
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