Electropolishing fluid for stainless steel

A. Electropolishing does not necessarily involve complex proprietary solutions, although those are available too. Simple chemicals like high concentration sulfuric and/or phosphoric acids can be used, but they are not necessarily "safe". See Durney's Electroplating Engineering Handbook ⇦ this on eBay, AbeBooks, or Amazon [affil link] for a good compilation of the various formulations.

If you can't get basic industrial chemicals like these acids, you're probably out of luck.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. There are thousands of variations of mixtures and temperatures for electropolishing SS. There also is no single formulation that will work best for all SS. I would quite strongly recommend that you buy or rent a very good book on the subject before investing in acids , tanks, racks, lab equipment and power supplies. Ted's book recommendation is a beginning only. Try a search for electropolishing and Faust. Faust had several in depth publications and magazine articles, but they are like 20 years old.

A. Faust may have written a book on it, Jim, I don't know, but I do remember his series on the subject in Metal Finishing magazine.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

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Ed. note 10/22/04:

We don't think there is a whole book on electropolishing in print anymore, but you can get a used copy of Tegart's "The Electrolytic And Chemical Polishing of Metals".