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Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ
The authoritative public forum
for Metal Finishing since 1989
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Removing excess polishing compound from metal parts
Tip: Readers want to learn from your situation,
often just skipping abstract questions.
Q. What is the best frequency between range (28-40 HZ) for ultrasonic wax and degrease removal?
Mahmoud Ibrahim- Egypt
September 17, 2024
⇩ Related postings, oldest first ⇩
Q. Hi,
I work in a CNC shop & we are polishing intricate metal parts. We have an issue in removing the excess polish from all the difficult to reach areas. Is there an easy way to dissolve the excess polish without tarnishing the part?
We had thought about dipping the parts in a solvent or such - has anyone tried this?
Thank you
CNC shop - Belfast, Ireland
September 15, 2009
A. Hi, Richard. Solvents are usually considered the wrong approach because they can leach out the binder and leave the abrasive attached to the parts. Ultrasonic cleaning is probably a better approach. This can range from an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] for a few tiny parts to a large industrial scale installation. Good luck.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
A. I use boiling water to clean off polish-O-ray polish from 320 to 600 weight. The grit is held together in the cake with something that resembles a type of gelatin. I seem to recall asking the manufacturer what it was and as one might guess they told me they could tell me but then they would have to kill me. They did however clue me in to the boiling water to remove the excess and it works simply tickety-boo.
I use lacquer thinner
⇦this on
eBay
or
Amazon
[affil links] Warning! highly flammable!
to remove excess wax base polishes, common rouge, Matchless and brown tripoli buffing compound
⇦this on
eBay
or
Amazon [affil links]
, etc. The good old boys at Matchless Metal Polishes gave me that tip years ago.
Best thing to do is get the name of the manufacturer off of the wrapper or the polish bar itself and google it to get a phone number. Call the maker up and start with, hi guys! How the hell do I remove any of your compound that is remaining after the polishing. It is quite possible that you may be the one millionth customer to ask them that question and you will not only get the information you need but might also win a cookie for being the one millionth person to ask them that question lol. I'm almost %100 certain this is your best solution! :o)
Rod Henrickson
gunsmith - Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Cleaning wax from a Silver Electroform
Q. Hello Friends,
We are a silver electroforming company.
We are making hollow silver jewelry and articles from electroforming over a wax mandrel.
We remove the wax mandrel by drilling holes in the formed silver by heating the electroform.
The problem we are facing is to clean the surface of silver after removing the wax.
We request some friend around to suggest us a procedure to clean/remove the wax efficiently and subsequent cleaning process.
Does wax dissolve in any solvents?
We have tried acetone, NC thinner, metal cleaning powders, boiling water, H2SO4, HCL, Ultrasonic and various other options.
Replies are eagerly awaited.
Plating Shop Owner - Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India.
August 31, 2010
A. Try turpentine ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] or gasoline, it must work.Be careful-very flammable! Hope it helps and good luck!
Goran Budija- Cerovski vrh Croatia
Dear Sir,
Thanks for your reply, I am sure it will be useful for me.
Regards,
Anand
- Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India
September 6, 2010
A. If you have a number of these to clean per day a vapor degreaser is a very safe and easy way of removing wax and other contaminates such as greases and oils. I would recommend you use an n-PB based solvent as well instead of TCE.
Larry Clark- Brunswick, Georgia
October 13, 2010
A. If you go the vapor degreasing route, you will need to establish controls or it will pit the tank and the part. I like vapor degreasing.
James Watts- Navarre, Florida
October 15, 2010
Best method to remove buffing compound
Q. I plate some high polished brass parts, they have caked on buffing compound because they are polished using a lot of buffing compound which reaches high temperatures during buffing.
Actually we wipe clean by hand using stodart solvent, then electroclean. But as the quantity increases the cleaning operation work turns very time-demanding and difficult to meet customers needs.
Wich is the best method to remove it in a reliable way?
Thanks
Daniel
- Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia
November 23, 2011
A. Hi, Daniel.
Solvents tend to remove the plasticizers from buffing compounds, leaving some abrasive and concentrated binder on the parts anyway. Ultrasonic cleaning will probably prove to be a better approach and is easily automated or at least bulk-processed for reduced labor cost.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Thanks for your time!.
Is not a cheaper solution but it seems to be the best.
Daniel
- Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia
A. If you have the control of buffing operation try to use a different compound. Surprisingly the best choice for buffing medium is watered down liquid soap. The soap breaks down the surface tension of water and allows much closer contact of abrasive with surface being polished. I do a lot of freehand polishing of metals, mostly knives, as a hobby. Also, liquid soap is very easy to wash off the part. Most retail manufacturers of buffing compounds use wax or some oily goo which is much harder to clean up and actually works worse than liquid soap. These very viscous waxes get heated, dehydrated and end up baked onto the part you are polishing, resulting in need of extensive cleanup.
Igor Petrusky- Stuart, Florida
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