On Thu, 28 Jul 2011 08:04:48 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

Hi, Bruce,



About 12 total feet of 2" pipe has been reduced from a rough gray, with
some
manufacturing marks and dings removed, to a flawless 400-grit, ready for
polish. The 3.5" pipe which will replace the rotted structure on the
roller
system is to a 220 grit; two more to go. The plates on the end of this
pipe, when installed, are ready for polish.


I'm amazed at what you are saying. "Most Stainless Guys" use a 4 inch
angle grinder with a selection of "flap" wheels in various grits and
then a series of felt buffing wheels with at least two abrasives
(rouge being the coarest). The real serious people use dedicated hand
held polishers. 12 ft of rail is hardly a day's work :-)

I have done some flap-wheel prep on mill-finish work, and that particular
set of SS (became the brackets to our stern platform) STILL has the
scratches.

Then you were either: (1) Using the wrong technique, or (2) using the
wrong wheels. I use flap wheels on a 6 inch bench grinder as a first
step in a polishing program. I got this idea from the local chrome
plating shop.

Otherwise, the sequence of what I was doing is as you describe -
80/120/220/320/400 grit with an air 6" DA, then (the guy who's doing the
welding was kind enough to let me do the polishing to that point) the shop's
10" wheel and rouge/finer takes over from there.

Just how bad is your stainless? I would use 80 grit as a first step
from rough metal, or as a fine grinding wheel, for example to radius a
corner weld.

Despite what you say, avoiding flats and dishes on a round item,
particularly one without a large radius, is hard enough with a wide wheel,
let alone a small one. The stuff I'd done with flap wheel was flat, MUCH
easier to get it all - but it still left scratches after some very
aggressive polishing after the flapwheels.


Regardless, that is how this amazing craftsman (I've seen his work - once
bitten, twice shy, from prior SS work, particularly my arch - so have
confidence in the outcome) does it. I could (and likely would) do worse
than to do something else. Keeping the pipe and sander moving (no flats) is
the biggest challenge; the rest is grunt work.


I assume that if you are working with teak that you know that
breathing the sanding dust is not good for you. At least the people
here all believe it.

Yah, I know. Darth Vader mask and goggles.


Teak, by the way, in a country, where it once was plentiful, is now
extremely expensive. I can't even begin to guess what it would cost in
a foreign country :-)

My bitch about all this is that the material was a relatively small part of
the costs. I asked how much more in materials it would be for teak and the
difference was under 10%. The dance began when I sourced some locally at a
surplus joint (where he got the trim for the forward head), which sells it
by the pound. One of his "selling" points was that teak would be very
heavy, vs. the stuff he used which, admittedly, is lightweight - but, so's
Balsa (I used to be a modeler)! He claimed what they had wasn't teak - yet,
he used what they had to do the trim - and that he couldn't get any from any
other supplier.

"Teak" is supposed to be one species of tropical hardwood but it seems
to vary a rather large amount in both density and color from place to
place. But as a general statement it is not either a very hard or
heavy wood - it is actually a species of tropical birch, at least not
in comparison to other tropical hardwoods. You can indent teak with
your thumbnail, for example. If you have been around it you can even
identify it by smell.

But for boat use it's major strong point is that it is a very oily
wood and lasts well if exposed, as in a deck, nor do bugs eat it. For
interior trim it has no particular virtue - unless you have termites
on board :-)

Regardless, we're faced with the near certainty of having to do it over. As
I'd never worked with it, I had no idea how soft this stuff was, so allowed
myself to be bullied into accepting it. As it was, in the end, the
workmanship was so abominable (which, just in finish alone, was why Lydia
has spent so much time on the table), notably the "cabinetry" (making all
line up, and keeping flush stuff flush) that I'm half-glad that it wasn't
teak, or it would have been ruined.

He may do great furniture and cabinetry, but he sure doesn't do marine stuff
worth a flip, including using standard steel screws (or, at least, they
stick to my marginally magnetized screwdriver - WTF was he thinking?!?). The
only actual stainless stuff on this table is hardware I provided (rebated
from the price he quoted, as agreed).

Tomorrow, the Raymarine guy who actually keeps his promise (two prior have
not, one multiple times, the other merely refusing to even answer the
phone
when I call to ask when he'll be here - he left to get a cable to test our
new triducer, after a few minutes aboard to assess the work, and never
came
back) to show up will be here to install the new triducer for the
fishfinder. Today I pulled the old one's wires through to the bow, with
accompanying strings for leads for the new single cable, removed the
Y-valve, and generally made ready for installation.

Further to the reliability/responsibility of this vendor, this AM, a couple
of hours before our agreed start time , I got an email from him saying he'd
be a bit late, as he had a sea trial he had to do before he got here - but
that he WAS going to be here, just a bit later than originally agreed. The
prior two would have, in the first case, said nothing whatever, and, in the
three prior appointments, never showed up at all, and in the second, just
disappeared and then screened my calls as confirmed by another yard buddy
getting picked up on the same number immediately after one of my calls.
"I'm sorry, we're totally buried - I can't do your work. You'll have to
find someone else." would have been an appropriate dodge if, for some
reason, he just didn't want the job. WTF is wrong with contractors? Are
they so buried with work that they don't have to think about the reputation
they generate by such behavior?

/rant :{))

L8R

Skip

Cheers,

Bruce