Stainless Steel Buffer

[StaySolitude]

Hello Everyone, I am working on a project in which I need to buff a stainless steel case. It needs to be an automated process where you can feed the 16X12X3 case into a machine and have it come out buffed. I was thinking of using a cloth wheel because it would mold to the contours of the case but I don't have much knowledge of the different polishing compounds and wheels. Also, what kind of drivers would you need for most wheels? Would a drill suffice for most wheels or am I going to need something a little more robust?

Thanks for the help

[C. Charles Hahn]

For an automated process like that you're probably looking for industrial-grade machinery along the same lines as a CNC machine; I would suggest looking to a supplier of that sort of equipment for guidance.

A detailing forum like this isn't really going to be able to help much if you're not looking for manual polishing/buffing techniques.

[opie_7afe]

imo i highly doubt there is a machine to buff things, from the how its made videos ive watched through the years anything that requires polishing is done by human hands because polishing needs the human eye to see if its done or not, i do know however they have wheel polishing machines but still takes a human to operate. you might be better off on a robotics forum or something along those lines, as that's an industrial process your looking for. unless you can attach something like the BuffPro to a robotic arm or something.

[chaotik]

Actually most stainless steel is polished while still in flat sheet form before being bent into it's final assembly.

It us put on a roller bed and fed thru a machine that polishes the surface. If you look at a grade 7 polished stainless or a grade 8 mirror polished stainless in a 4x 8 sheet, there is no way a human could duplicate the eveness of shine that the machine can. On a smaller scale a person can do it, but not on a production scale. Stainless is very hard and requires high rpm to polish out. A loose wheel might be a final step to bring out the highest shine, but you are talking a production scale setup and would have to find a manufacturer of such equipment