Gator grit pads, and polishing stuff info...too fast....

[doctorsbro]

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.....

 

[rtrevino]

Caswell also sells a few "kits" for polishing

http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/gbkit.html

http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/sspolkit.html

 

[doctorsbro]

yes they do, the bad thing is they use the black emery compound in the kits which breaks down to fast on hard stainless, they sell dedicated stainless compounds which cut much faster and last much longer

 

[strat_thru_marshall]

I am planning on mirror-polishing my stainless stand that I am currently working on. I'm going to be dealing with the mill finish and the scratches from grinding welds. What grit compounds do you recommend I go with prior to the polish step?

 

[atoyot]

subscribed....

 

[doctorsbro]

I am planning on mirror-polishing my stainless stand that I am currently working on. I'm going to be dealing with the mill finish and the scratches from grinding welds. What grit compounds do you recommend I go with prior to the polish step?

I would grind your welds down with an 80 grit flap disk on your grinder, then start with the 120 grit greaseless compound on a sisal wheel and work your way up to 600 grit greasless and then use caswells Excello Stainless Steel Compound followed up with theyre white lightning stainless steel rouge.

 

[Catt22]

Excellent info db! I knew there had to be some tricks of the trade that weren't getting through to us on polishing SS.

 

[ghart999]

subscribed too. I am doing a SS brew stand and would like to get a decent finish. nothing insane but decent.

 

[bienaime]

subscribe

 

[Ohio-Ed]

Great info, thanks for the thread!

For initial weld grinding, flap disks work great on flat surfaces & outside corners, but what do you use for grinding inside corners?

Ed

 

[strat_thru_marshall]

Great info, thanks for the thread!

For initial weld grinding, flap disks work great on flat surfaces & outside corners, but what do you use for grinding inside corners?

Ed

so I'm a complete noob at welding and I used a grinding wheel to grind the weld beads off. there are some pretty decent scuffs on the surface of my tubing around these areas from the grinder. If I start now with the 80 grit flap disc and use it lightly over the scuffed up, but flat, area and then proceed to the compounds on the sisal wheel can I still achieve a nice finish?

 

[toolboxdiver]

subscribed

 

[MrStrangeBrew]

wow im glad i saw this before i got went any further on my two kegs. ive already started cleaning up the outside surface using a disc similar to the gator grit discs. it did a pretty good job im guessing it was either coarse or maybe medium. but anyways it took forever and i havent been looking forward to it again especially if im not going to get the results im looking for. since ive already started with gator grit is it too late to switch to this process? if not then what grit do you think i should start with since ive already taken off first layer? i have a couple pics to give you a better idea of what ive done.

 

[lschiavo]

I have been thinking of intentionally swirling my cornies. Like the finish I have seen on aluminum with overlapping circles. Does anyone know of a product that would give this effect on stainless?

 

[Bobby_M]

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.

I've had decent success with the gator pads and Lowes Polishing compounds as I've written about in the Polishing your keg thread:

This was done using the process described on my website here: http://www.suebob.com/index.php?opt...polishing&catid=37:hardwareprojects&Itemid=64

Keep in mind that I'm not arguing that an angle grinder is ideal in that the RPMs are higher than you want. However, it's a tool just about everyone has. I've polished several kegs and have run my grinder for hours of straight runtime without burning anything up. I have noticed several people in the previously mentioned threads that end up with a lot more swirl marks and have a hard time with getting them to polish, but I think it's a technique issue more than materials. Who knows.

 

[Bobby_M]

I have been thinking of intentionally swirling my cornies. Like the finish I have seen on aluminum with overlapping circles. Does anyone know of a product that would give this effect on stainless?

This effect is usually called "engine turning" and it's really only possible to get a consistent result by putting some kind of abrasive or STAINLESS wire brush into a drill press. It's near impossible to hold the shaft one place when it hits the work flush. It always wants to walk.

 

[doctorsbro]

I'm not here to "bash" anybody's process's for polishing. I'm just stating what did and did not work for me. For me the gator grit is just not cost effective, all of the gator grit method materials are throw away, the gator grit pads begin to lose they're "grit" rather quick, using a greaseless compound when you ose your grit your just touch the stick to the wheel and then your back to having a clean grit, you also cover a much larger surface area a lot quicker . Sure a lot of people use the gator grit type surface prep pads for polishing but they don't stop at the fine grit pad, then go further with super fine and ultra fine and then to a very aggressive compound, the only manufacturer of the super and ultra fine is 3m scotchbrites and are less expensive @ $2 per pad and you can use the entire pad since its a hook and loop or roloc mount pad, the "fine" gator grit equivelent grit is 180 which is far too course for the polishing stage, trying to buff out 180 grit scratches on stainless takes far too long and will leave marks, its like trying to sand 180 grit scratches out with 800 grit sandpaper...

 

[Im_Lars]

Doctorsbro, Thanks for chiming in with a legitimate opposition to polishing kegs but I'm with Bobby on this one. The Gator pad process that he came up with worked very well for me and I didn't have any problems with swirls. I can totally see your point on the being able to use the entire pad with the 3m system, that would have made things a little quicker. Again thanks for posting a great opposition. Choose is good.

P.S. That brew stand you are building for your Bother rocks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Homercidal]

I'm looking to go the other way. How could I get a nice, even frosted look??

 

[camiller]

If anyone hasn't seen doctorsbro's build thread, which is actually for his brother not himself, it looks to be a fantastic build. The shiny bits start at about post 81.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/great-stainless-single-tier-begins-235801/

I might have to pack up a few bottles and make the 15min drive over to CB to see it in person if I can talk doctorsbro out of an address

 

[camiller]

I'm looking to go the other way. How could I get a nice, even frosted look??

Sand/bead blasting maybe?

 

[Catt22]

I'm looking to go the other way. How could I get a nice, even frosted look??

Glass bead treatment would be my choice. I did it to some aluminum scuba tanks and they came out very nice.

 

[doctorsbro]

I appreciate the clarification but it was very much written like a bashing and I doubt I'm the only one that read it that way. Of course, I'll just appear to be taking an overly defensive position no matter what. I'm all for coming up with alternative methods and then looking at the comparison between the two, but that's not how it was approached. Are you finished with a project using your alternative materials yet? How did it come out? Did the sisal wheel really hold up like you thought or did it wear down quickly like I suspect?

How did you find out what the equivalent grit of the gator grit fine is?

Well if i came across as bashing it wasnt meant to just like i said, maybe its that i am a perfectionist and im looking for not a mirror "like" finish but a perfect flawless finish exactly like a flawless mirror. I have hundreds if not thousands of hours in wetsanding and buffing cars, also polishing LOTS of aluminum parts pertaining to cars, of course aluminum is a much differrent animal to polish but helps with my knowledge of polishing. It seems im not the only one with the problem of swirl marks using the fine grit gator and then straight to the lowes compound, maybe the new different packaging compound they sell uses a lower quality grit, maybe the old stuff is alumina oxide which last much longer and is a sharper grit im not sure, but the products i bought will not create a swirl free finish whatsoever, especially going from the fine grit straight to polishing.

I came up with the grit by comparing them to some 3m surface conditioning disks, the fine grit 3m scotchbrite fine surface conditioning disk is rated at 220-320 grit which the fine grit gator is much more course, i also compared it to a medium grit 3m scotchbrite disk which is 100-120 grit and the gator grit is finer than the medium scotchbrite, so im assuming its between 120 and 220, but my best guess is about 180, also wetsanding with 220 over the fine gator grit made a much better finish removing some of the swirl marks, but the 220 is still too course for polishing.

Sisal wheels are the benchmark for compounding almost every type of metal for polishing. They hold up well, i have sisal wheels that i have used to polish alot of things, they last along time, they can be cleaned with a wheel rake. Some polishing shops have sisal wheels that are 50 years old and still going, they say that "aged" wheels polish out better, but i wouldnt know because i dont have a polishing business, most of these business's are plating companies.

This will be my last post in this thread, i can see where this is going, ive allready been labeled as "bashing".... I just posted what did and did not work for me and was documenting my process to achieve my goal. I didnt know some took stuff to heart so seriously over polishing a piece of metal...... If anybody finds my info usefull than great, but im not sure why anybody is arguing over free information.....

 

[atoyot]

This will be my last post in this thread, i can see where this is going,

That's too bad. Well, I for one will say thanks for the info. Based on the pics from your buildup I'm going to give your method a shot.

 

[lschiavo]

That's to bad. Well, I for one will say thanks for the info. Based on the pics from your buildup I'm going to give your method a shot.

I agree. Don't take a few negative comments to heart. I could tell from the OP that you have some experience. IMO, there are far more people on here that will just read and gain some valuable information. You don't hear so much from them but they are here. Cheers.

 

[rtrevino]

Wow HBT drama! I didn't fin that the original post was "bashing" and I have also used the gator grit method with good results but that doesn't mean that there is not a better way to accomplish the same goal.

Thanks for sharing with us another way to polish our kegs. That's what this forum should be for; sharing knowledge, educating and warning others about potential disasters.

 

[Bobby_M]

Please post your results and experience with the Caswell and Harbor Freight parts. I've used the sisal wheel and black bar before, but just as you've mentioned, the grinder is too fast. It wears the sisal down too quickly. I'm curious how it works out at slower speeds and how long the HF motor holds up.

 

[SAMPLER]

Pics please

 

[firefighterbg]

This is very helpful info. I Have been trying to polish my stainless kettle and kegs but still can get rid of the fine swirl marks. I will be looking on that site to order some stuff

 

[firefighterbg]

Well I ordered the kit from caswell and worked on the keg View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1431309996.253942.jpg. I also etched it with my logo and painted a part with chalk paint to label what's in the kegView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1431310071.937815.jpg. There still is a few minor swirls in spots put its better than what I started withView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1431310180.010814.jpg. That toView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1431310213.751632.jpg. So they have come a long way. The kit I bought was for a angel grinder and I'm using a variable speed polisher