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Jon Slaughter Jon Slaughter is offline
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Feb 2007
Posts: 3
Default Best way to remove swirl and burn marks on chrome?


"Shaun Van Poecke" wrote in message
...

"Jon Slaughter" wrote in message
. ..
Yes it is flat and I do have an angle grinder along with a grinding
machine. I was plan on getting the jewelers rouge bar and use that since
I think its the finest abrasive you can get? I'm not sure about the
washers though, what is that and what is it for? Does it keep the
pressure down or something so you don't apply to much when grinding?


if you look at your grinder, you'll likely find that there is a locking
plate to keep the disk on, then the disk, then a backing plate. The
backing plate most often doesnt work with a polishing pad, so you need an
appropriate sized washer to put in there instead. If you also have a
bench grinder and the part is removable from the boat then that can be a
good way to polish too... but you cant see the material surface as you
are polishing.

Well, I don't mind using a ligher compound if its more safe. Last thing I
want to to is make it worse. I was thinking about the white and red
rouge but try the red rouge and see how it works and if it does clean it
up a bit then try the white to speed up the process. I still have a few
deeper scratches to get out(the original scratches) but they are of
lesser concern at the moment.


most of the materials i have suggested are far on the safe side. a hard
wheel with a fark compound would be over kill. the materials i have
suggested (cotton or denim wheels, white or green compound bricks) are
goint to take minutes, not seconds to have an effect. you will have
control over the level of pollish

Thanks for your time. I plan on going to the hardware store today and get
the materials. I do a little bit of shopping at fist and see what I can
get.

I've seen the different types of buffing wheels but I'm not sure what to
get. There seems to be so many and for different applications. Hopefully
when I get to the store I won't have to much trouble.

So I suppose I need to get the abrasive, fasteners, and buffing wheels.
Like I said, I'll get the jewelers rouge, white rouge, look at the
fasteners, and try and get 2-3 buffing wheels that are very soft.


its possible to go way too light with these things too, the guy at the
shop should have some good advise if its a specialist shop. the cotton
buff that i suggest is really only a final step, it wont take out
scratches. a denim type wheel witha gren compund is the lightest wheel
that would be able to remove a scratch in human years, many people would
start with a calico wheel and a grey brick.

Shaun


It didn't seem to work. It did seem to reduce the swirl almost completely
and reduced the cracks significantly but it caused several other problems:

First I seemed to remove the layer of chrome. There are regions where its a
gold luster(slightly more yellow) that fade into regions where its more
bluish/silver. It happens on places where I couldn't polish well such as
edges or holes. Also in the right light you can see lines sorta like
stainless steel. I used only jewelers rouge and one that was suppose to be
finer(jewelers was 5 and I got 6 too).

While in normal light it looks find and if its bright and not at the right
angle it looks all like chrome. But you can also see how messed up it was in
the right light.

I'm not sure what I did wrong. Only thing I can think of is that I used a
buffing wheel that was to strong. It was 6 Medium and it was the only one
Lowes had so I got that. I'm not sure if my "technique" was right or what.
It worked but is definately not back to the chrome plated look unless the
light is directly shining on it and not at an angle. In ambient light you
can see the cross over from the yellowish to blue that looks like a dirt
line or something. I think I wore off the chrome layer which is probably a
pretty bad thing? That or its a layer of oxidation or something?

;/

Jon