[TheForge] making stainless shiny

[Ries Niemi]

On Monday, October 13, 2003, at 06:00 PM, William Futer wrote:

> I thought it would be interesting to make leaf keychains out of 
> stainless. My question is how do you make them shiny again without 
> losing the veins and such.  I have seen a product called Derustit to 
> clean stainless welds but there must be another way.
>
>

Bill- this is a subject that has come up a lot lately- There are a 
couple of ways of getting stainless shiny- but the easiest, and the 
best for complicated forgings, is some kind of acid etch. You can etch 
directly in acid, but it is potentially dangerous. The preferred method 
is to electropolish- this means you use electricity to help remove the 
surface layer, and hence you can use a much milder acid.
Depending on where you live, you might be able to find a commercial 
place that does this- it is a lot easier to have someone else invest in 
the equipment, deal with state and federal laws regarding the disposal 
of acids, and have the experience to know how to do it right.
Look in the yellow pages under plating, electropolishing or metal 
cleaning, and ask if they have or know of an electropolisher.  A 
related process is passivating- this usually leaves it with a more 
matte finish, while electropolishing leaves the stainless shiny.
If you want to try it yourself, many people have had luck using a car 
battery charger, reverse polarity, and a mild acid. Heath Satow, a 
sculptor from california, has been experimenting lately with citrisurf, 
a citric acid based cleaning product. Given the health risks of real 
acids, this could be a way to go. I have been using a proprietary 
product from Screenpro in La, which I suspect is phosporic acid.

ries