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Polishing circlips or jumplinks

For those of you who don't know what a circlip or jumplink is imagine a spring, hold it down in a vice and cut throughout the upper surface. The result is a number of circular links which can be twisted to form a complete circle. We are using 304 grade stainless to make these clips. When we take delivery we dip the links into an acid solution to clean them up and then throw them into a tumbler to bring them up to a shine. We were wondering if anyone could suggest a faster way or more importantly a method to produce a better shine.

Thanks in advance.

Alex Hughes
- Melboune, Victoria, Australia
 

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I take it from your description that your parts are small. I can also only answer your question about mechanical methods. If you are not too concerned about the overall smoothness, the fastest way to achieve brighteness is via burnishing using steel or porcelain media with a good polishing compound. The larger and heavier the media the faster it works. If smoothness is a concern, you can't beat pretreated dry organic materials, but this takes a lot more time.

AF Kenton
retired business owner - Hatboro, Pennsylvania