Hey,
Been doing some research on stainless steel finishes and electro polishing looks to be the winner...From what i gather the metal is placed in acid solution bath then connected to DC powersupply with anodes and the iron moves from the s/s to the anodes.... removes iron but not chrome leaving higher chrome levels on the surface so more corrosion resistant (chrome oxide is inert). Am looking at getting a set of stainless extractors with a bit of oxide electropolished and was wondering if any members know a business/ have contacts with some1 who can help me out or any idea of prices. (prefer sydney area)

cheers
Edward

If your using current and a chemical solution It will Etch the surface metal not polish it

the only way to polish is by using abrasive paper in decreasing grits untill you get to 12 or 1500 then use a polish mop and rouge to bring up the surface

How bad is the chrome you are considering to redo? vw 54 is correct. Depending on the plating, emery, and polishing is great....but if it is badly pitted the mop can drag accross the pitting.......I have used fine 0000 steel wool, with jewellers dilux green.......slightly cuts top surface and then use a nice soft cloth with a tiny bit of the green dilux, with lastly a clean soft cloth again, this is quite a cheap alternative and achieves really good results...works an absolute treat on stainless body trim......sydney based company Smith and Smith or Sievers jewellers supplies can sell you a small block of this dilux in green which will last a life time......zsolt briz

Thanks for the replys, its a set of stainless steel extractors. Ive tried wire wheel and then autosol metal polish and its slowly getting there but it's very slow and the finish could be better.

Iron contamination seems to be the cause of corrosion, from what ive read this 'electropolishing' which is similar to pickling removes iron from the surface leaving higher levels of chromium to form chromium dioxide which is inert meaning the finish will stay shiny for longer with higher resistance to corrosion/oxidation.

http://www.electroshine.com.au/ 

http://www.ableelectropolishing.com/electrop.htm 

postage up to those guyz in qld would prob end up costing more than the treatment itself... looking for something similar in sydney.

http://www.electromold.com.au/ 

these guys looked after me with some polishing, nice job, nice blokes, nice price...........

thanks dumone, will give em a call.

do they do the electropolishing?

no worries, click on the listed finishing types, they open up detail pages for each finish..........head for the home page too, links to email to which they responded quite quickly

yea emailed them and they do passivation, not sure what the finish is like tho, sounds very similar