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Aluminium Polishing

I recently cut and turned some 6mm thick aluminium on my lathe (60 & 80mm diameter). I want to polish the surface up to a mirror finish, yet I'm not sure that it is possible, as the surface is not a good quality and is somewhat scratched.

If anyone could help me I would greatly appreciate it.

Josh Hatch
Australia
1999

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Polishing is simple in the abstract, Josh. You need to choose an emery cloth sufficiently rough to remove all the existing scratches, recognizing that the emery cloth will scratch heck out of your workpiece but at a smaller scale. When you see all of the old scratches gone, make sure your emery cloth scratches are unidirectional. Now take a finer grade and rub perpendicularly until all the scratches from the first cloth are gone. As you get to finer and finer sand, you'll reach a point where you need to switch to a compound rather than a dry sandpaper.

That's the concept, but the execution requires detail and practice. Fortunately, one of our readers provides the full detail in letter # 800

Good luck,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
1999

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Sir, recently I got my house Painted. Some paint had come on Aluminium (Extruded) window frames.

The paint was removed by using some solvent and sandpaper.

Now there is a new problem. Where there was paint we now find there are bright shining patches and rest of Aluminium work has dull finish.

Can you suggest a process by which these bright shining patches can be made like rest of aluminium.

Regards

Puneet

Puneet Nigam
- Ghaziabad,UttarPradesh, India
2001