Sound technical content, curated with aloha by
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ
The authoritative public forum
for Metal Finishing since 1989
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How to Electropolish Stainless Steel
Q. Dear sir,
I wish to buy a book that covers the practice of stainless steel electropolishing. Have you that book?
Sincerely yours,
- Argentina
1996
A. Hi Miquel. I'm not familiar with any current book that covers just electropolishing. The Metal Finishing Guidebook has some coverage of it, as does Volume 5: Surface Engineering of ASM's Metals Handbook, but the most complete coverage I've seen is in the Electroplating Engineering Handbook [on
AbeBooks or
eBay or
Amazon affil links]
by Durney.
Maybe our readers have other suggestions.
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
and Chemical Polishing
of Metals in
Research and Industry"
by W.J. Tegart
on eBay or
AbeBooks
or Amazon
(affil links)
A. I have never seen a whole book written on just electropolishing. There are many good articles in the trade magazines however. I would be glad to try and answer any questions you have as I have 25 years experience in this field.
Mark Goldreichmetal finishing shop - Middletown, Connecticut
1999
A. Hi. Maybe you can get a used copy of Tegart's "The Electrolytic and Chemical Polishing of Metals in Research and Industry". I recently discovered it. Good luck.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
November 15, 2008
Multiple threads merged: please forgive chronology errors :-)
Q. I'd like to learn how to electropolish stainless steel. Could some one help me with the process?
Flavio Stramare Ribeiro- Curitiba, Brazil
1996
A. You should look at Metal Finishing Process Corp. This company has a nice website with some general information about electropolishing.
Also at the website of metal-finishing.com is some information available, but I personally prefer that we all stay at one website with these discussions.
Harry van der Zanden
consultant - Tilburg, Netherlands
1998
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Ed. note 2014: Metal-finishing.com (with a hyphen) was a Vertical Net site, but is now old history, and a domain-for-sale. The Metalfinishing.com (no hyphen) URL is owned by Elsevier, but they closed Metal Finishing in December 2013 and the site is not maintained.
Update 2019: Both of those domain names appear to be for sale.
A. A long long time ago, the METAL FINISHING published a series of articles on electropolishing, it was very good. I think it was written by Dr. Faust.
-Sara
Sara Michaeli
Tel-Aviv-Yafo, Israel
1998
A. Hi, Flavio. In addition to those sources, there is a very good chapter on electropolishing of stainless steel in the Electroplating Engineering Handbook [on
AbeBooks or
eBay or
Amazon affil links]
.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Only one side is getting properly electropolished
July 15, 2014Q. Dear Sir,
Sir we are the manufacturer of Electropolishing chemical & additives in India. Sir we are facing the problem that one side is properly polished and other side is not polishing. Sir please give me some suggestions so to solve the problem. The stainless steel is grade 304 & 316.
Please help me out.
Thanks & Regards
Yogesh Jaggi
- Mumbai, Maharastra, India
A. Hello Yogesh!
From your photos I'd GUESS that the issue is lack of current density in the unpolished areas, so that all the action is taking place where the cathode is closest to the workpiece (anode). Can you adjust your fixturing? I'd also paint or wax or otherwise make non-conductive that attachment that is sticking out of the piece, around which you have a circle of non-polished area.
If you've already tried this, I cannot think of what else to do. Good luck!
Lee Gearhart
metallurgist - E. Aurora, New York
July 29, 2014
Reapplying Electropolish process to stainless steel heating coils
Q. Q. Has anyone ever had any success at reapplying an electropolish finish to a SS 316 surface? We have coils that have fouled in our MnP process to the point where they require daily maintenance. We have new ones on the way but we were wondering if it could be possible to reapply to the old coils.
Samuel Hunt- North Vernon, Indiana, US
February 19, 2019
A. Hi Samuel. If the heating coils are gouged from mechanical removal of the MnP it may be necessary to mechanically polish them first, but I don't see why they can't be electropolished again.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
February 2019
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