Polishing Stainless Steel Elements
by Kylie Jones
Stainless steel elements like clasps, bails and beads generally have a mirror like finish. This finish reflects the light and adds shine to your designs, but the down side is they are easy to spoil with scratches and the shiny surface makes the scratches really obvious. The good news is surface scratches can be easily polished away with 3M polishing papers.
Instructions
use sandpaper and polishing papers when finishing my work. I use them for different jobs because they impart different textures on the metal. Sandpaper tends to scratch or abrade the surface and it removes metal fairly quickly. Polishing papers seem to smear or burnish the metal and this burnishing action makes restoring a mirror finish quick and easy.

To restore an already polished surface I start with the finest paper and see if that works, if it doesn't remove the scratch I just move down the order from the finest. This is really the opposite of normal polishing where you start at a coarser grit and move through the finer papers in steps. Because the surface is already polished you can save yourself a lot of time by starting fine and just seeing how coarse you need to go and then reversing your steps back up to the finest paper.
For this clasp with surface scratches and marks I started with 6000 grit. It was close to fixing them but not a perfect result so I went the next step to 4000 grit and then again with the 6000 grit. As you can see the clasp is now ready for use.

Many of the stainless steel elements come with a protective film, try leaving this film on for as long as possible to prevent the scratches and save yourself time.
Kylie Jones's Polishing Stainless Steel Elements - , General Education, Filing, Finishing, polishing stainless steel findings
Kylie Jones's Polishing Stainless Steel Elements - , General Education, Filing, Finishing, polishing stainless steel findings
Kylie Jones's Polishing Stainless Steel Elements - , General Education, Filing, Finishing, polishing stainless steel findings

Materials

No materials listed

Tools

Half Round Sanding Sticks Set of 6
BUF-751.98
  • BUF-751.98
  • Lesson Quantity: 1.00 pieces
  • Purchase Quantity: 1.00 each
  • Price: $11.57
  • Gold Club Price: $8.68
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WET/DRY PAPER 9 x 11, 600grit- PK/10
ABR-500.30
  • ABR-500.30
  • Lesson Quantity: 1.00 pieces
  • Purchase Quantity: 1.00 each
  • Price: $12.95
  • Gold Club Price: $9.71
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WET/DRY PAPER 9 x 11, 400grit- PK/10
ABR-500.25
  • ABR-500.25
  • Lesson Quantity: 1.00 pieces
  • Purchase Quantity: 1.00 each
  • Price: $12.95
  • Gold Club Price: $9.71
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  • Category: General Education
  • Technique(s): Filing / Finishing