The authoritative public forum
  for Metal Finishing since 1989
-----

How do you accomplish a us 26 finish

Dear sir could you please tell me how I would be able to achieve a us 26 finish on bar stock steel.

William Keith
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin
2006

---

I assume you are talking about a 26 RMS. If you are there are a number of ways, but if you are talking about bar stock, which is about 36 RMS, all you have to do is hit it with a non-woven wheel or pass it through a time saver. If it is small enough to fit in a vibe, use a medium cut ceramic.

AF Kenton
retired business owner - Hatboro, Pennsylvania
2006

---

Hello,

In response to your bar stock. My question would first be to ask what kind of volume you would need to process? A few pieces can be manually processed pretty easily with a Dynabrade type slack-belt polisher. They make them to use either abrasive or scotch-brite products. If your stock is not too long, maybe mechanical mass finishing is the answer. The quality of the raw material is also a factor! Are you looking for a true finish with no spikes (highs) on the profilometer, meaning pits or imperfections on the surface? If so, you might have to go through two or three grit sizes to achieve your goal. Scotch-brite is too expensive to use alone for this task, but not in every case. If your just looking for an overall average, you may be able to get what your looking for with one step. For large production orders, you may have to invest in a pipe/tube polisher. They have some pretty good machines out on the market today.

I assume the finish your looking for is polished. You can also media blast the bar stock and hold finishes as low as 10 Ra. A 26 Ra could be obtained with glass bead. Mesh size 325 or finer at 35 to 42 psi.

I hope this helps you.

Dean M. Mella
- Cleveland, Ohio
2006