Aluminum polishing as mechanical engineering project

We are students in cegep in our final year of mechanical engineering. We are making little stanley cups that are about 2 in long out of aluminum and we are looking at way to polish these cups in some sort of bath or in another way where we can polish many at a time. We have been looking at various solutions such as bright dip (which isn't very acceptable since it gives off a lot of fumes) and we have also looked at corn cob media which would debur and possibly give some luster. We have to produce 500 stanley cups so we need a better method.

Do you any of you know of some products that we could use in shining our products without it being too costly and also not to too toxic. We appreciate your help.

You are correct, Roger, that you don't want to brite dip them yourself because of the nastiness of the process--but you could contract it out. But whether you bright dip them or not, mechanical polishing always precedes it anyway (to the best of my knowledge). Some shops who make 500 such items a day still polish them manually on lathes, and I think that's probably what you should do. Good luck.

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey