Need help in polishing stainless

[d patterson]

I need help in polishing stainless. Tips, tricks, fast ways to prep stainless before polishing (ie aggressive compounds, wheel selection, etc.) I am looking for a mirror finish. I have polished a lot of aluminum with great success. But stainless seems to be a real bear. Any help would be appreciated.

[JJ13]

The stainless is much harder than the aluminum so it requires that much more work to prep it before you actually begin trying to make it shiny. Use a sander with increasingly finer grit sand paper starting with 100 grit going up to around 350 to 400. A random orbital sander works the best. Then polish with a sewn cotton wheel on a 9" grinder, or large bench grinder with coarse rouge till no sanding marks are visible. Once it begins getting shiny and you see no more sanding marks in the material change to an unsewn cotton wheel and medium grit rouge. Once it has a very shiny appearance change to a clean unsewn cotton wheel and use fine rouge for the final polish. After you are happy with the result use a hand polish like Mothers or my fav. Heavy metal blue(which is the fine). This is just to clean off any rouge residue. If it is something that will be exposed to the elements keep a good coat of wax on it to protect it ( or Pledge furniture polish).

Happy polishing!!!!!

[d patterson]

Thanks for the info