Repair brushed stainless finish

A. I nearly ruined a very expensive sink in my apartment by using one of those green/yellow dish sponges which I thought were just abrasive plastic, but as it turns out, they must have had steel in the green part. (maybe this is obvious to people who clean a lot)

Anyway, as one user pointed out, the brushed look comes from scratches going in a particular direction. To polish it just use something such as the sponge I mentioned, to scratch in the direction of the polish. I would bet that you could use wire brush or 00 steel wool [on eBay or Amazon]. For my sink, all scratches were horizontal so I simply applied a bit of pressure and moved the sponge back and forth horizontally several times in the same direction as the polishing while looking at it under a directional light that made the dull areas more obvious. Sure enough, the scratches slowly went away. When I was nearly finished, it looked a bit different than the rest of the sink so I blended it with those areas by pressing even more lightly. Kind of a perfectionist.

The area had looked a dark grey compared to the rest of the sink and now you can no longer tell. I'd start with a sponge like this and then move to harsher techniques like steel wool or a steel brush. Anyway, the idea is to just redo the brushed look. Brushed steel isn't exactly polished like a mirror and is actually scratched to a particular grain. The sponge seemed to replicate that nicely.