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Q&As since 1989


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Polishing 303 stainless steel, 3/8 hex material

2007

Hi, I am trying to mirror polish a 303 ss hex material. I am dealing with a very tight tolerance and customer need it to be 0.072 - 0.375" from side to side in Hex material. considering raw material tolerance we can only polish away 0.001" of material. my question is: is there any way we can mirror polish ss material with only taking material down by 0.001"?
Thank you so much

Reza Mofid
Quality/technical manager - Woodbridge, ON, Canada

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First of two simultaneous responses --

Theoretically yes. It would depend on the initial quality, tolerance and roughness of your raw material. Remember that a coarse finish for regular machining is around 125 RMS. That's 1/8th of a thou. A fine ground finish would be 32RMS (1/32nd of a thou) or even 16RMS (1/64th). A cold drawn barstock finish might be in between those values. Obviously, these numbers do not consider deep draw lines, inclusions, dings, corrosion, etc.

Guillermo Marrufo
Monterrey, NL, Mexico
2007

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Second of two simultaneous responses --

Need to know size of material. If it is smaller than a 12" cube, you can try mass finishing using a dry organic process.

AF Kenton
retired business owner - Hatboro, Pennsylvania
2007

Toothpaste and a cotton buffing wheel

Phil Parsche
- Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin
January 23, 2008