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Cleaning and polishing metals and plastics - tool recommendation

DRD

DRD

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2 10 Years
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Oct 26, 2014
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Location
Newark
I discovered this website ....

http://www.thepolishingshop.co.uk

I contacted them for advice and spoke to a really helpful guy and outlined that I was restoring metal and plastic in pinball machines

He recommended this kit, which cost less than £20 delivered
Steel Polishing Super Finishing kit 4"x1/2" mops with Menzerna Compounds

http://www.thepolishingshop.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?WD=super steel polishing&PN=Steel---Stainless-Steel-Kits-for-Drills.html#SID=174

This has 4 different grades of polishing discs, and 4 different polishing compounds which will deal with rusty metal through to fine plastics. You can use with a battery drill, but they work better with the higher speed of an electric drill

I have been using it for a couple of months now and it is superb. Pitted wpc legs (top is rust covered with horrible silver paint, the bottom is after I used a single coarse mop) ...
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Plastics - it is perfect with speaker panels and playfield plastics using the most gentle wheel and gentle compound. This panel had usual swirl marks and also horrible scratches on both sides of the display window as some moron used sand paper on it. (Note - The red paint loss on the speaker grill was already there, I did not do this !)

image.jpg

The after photo, this took less than 5 minutes, i did not even have to remove it from the mdf. This was done using the drill at full speed. I even used it on the inside of the display windows as i learnt using a surplus speaker panel that light pressure did not damage the art if i momentarily placed the wheel on it accidentally. You can push down hard on this plastic and it does not burn, i think you would need to be quite careless to damage it. Just remember to reverse the drill when need be so that you do not snag the edge of the material with the mop - it wants to spin from the body of the item you are polishing to the edge, not the other way round.

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It cleaned up heavily pitted and corroded drop targets, solenoid plungers etc to leave them with a finer finish than new.

From this level of corrosion ...
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To this ...

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The guy was so helpful, i just bought from him. These wheels and compounds may be available elsewhere for less, I did not shop around, as i believe in rewarding customer service

I use ear muffs, safety glasses and a dust mask when using this lot
 
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Mmmm, polished things, I might just have to have a go at this. on the plus side I will be able to let everyone know just how easy or hard it is to break something!:eek:
 
To keep things safe i would say ...

1. Practice on a spare/ broken plastic before you polish your important one
2. The risk is really about catching the edge of the item with the spinning wheel and it flying through the air with the greatest of ease. Something like a slingshot is easy to polish, put your drill in a vice and hold the slingshot in your hand. but don't risk doing near thin, spindly bits of plastics
 
Thanks DRD I've ordered the kit after reading this post. I'm hoping it will bring the worst set of rusty legs I've have ever seen back to life!!
 
The legs are a good place to start. Just remember that with all polishing that you progress through the abrasives.

On your legs you will start with the most aggressive sisal, this is fine on hard metal but you would probably not use this on plastic. This will leave visible scratches, though these are far less offensive than the rust. You then use the stitched cotton mop, this will leave much finer scratches. You may stop here, as this could well be good enough.

Or you could go onto the loose cotton mop, this would leave an incredible finish far finer than when the legs were new
 
Thanks DRD for the detailed info. On the metal parts underneath the playfield did you use all MOP types and progress through them or just one type? Also have you tried it on side rails?

Oh and regards the legs I think these are far beyond the kit. I've tried one leg with the foil and coke method it's got rid of the crust of the rust but left the legs smooth but black where the rust was. I'll give it a try but I've a feeling a trip to the sandblast / powder coating guy will be in order. Looks like I'll have either a black or red pair for my latest project :rofl:
 
Hi. I always try to test on an inconspicuous bit first, start gentle to see if you need a more abrasive wheel. I find that the stitched cotton is ok under the playfield

The finest loose cotton mop will not damage any metal or plastic. Use for finishing plastic
The second finest loose cotton mop is probably fine enough for a mirror finish in metal, may leave minor scratches in playfield plastic (though i used on my subway in funhouse and it did not leave a visible scratch)

For metals the debate really is whether you start with the stitched cotton (third finest finish) or sisal (coarsest). So just try the stitched cotton first and see if it is enough.

If the metal is really shot (rusty inner legs), i use this from toolstation it does leave obvious scratches. Then you buff these out with sisal, then the stitched cotton. It is disconcerting at first, but the reality is that polishing is the art of making progressively finer scratches until you cant see them.

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