| Search our quarter-million Q&As |
Home of the finishing HOTLINE since 1989
-----Stainless steel electropolishing or nickel or chrome plating
Hi,
How can I get the mirror like finish using stainless steel 304 which I will use for furniture arm? I will use round stainless steel and have it bent based on the design.
our client showed us a sample that is polished SS and it was like mirror finish and they said it was polished. I was doubting that it was polished finish. I'm guessing it was nickel plated or chrome plated. Still I don't have any idea how to get their finish. I tried polishing the SS but I can't get that kind of mirror finish.
Please help.
Thanks.
production manager - Vietnam
March 15, 2009
March 20, 2009
Eric,
I've seen some SUS components that have been Electropolished ( EP
)that looks close to Nickel / Chrome finish.
- Penang, Malaysia
Electropolished 304 looks very much like chrome plated; and even to experienced platers, it can be very difficult to tell what is electropolished and what is nickel/chrome plated.
A dip in 30 % nitric acid will show the difference...
- Odense, Denmark
March 23, 2009
March 26, 2009
There is a possibility that EP can give you a finishing that looks like Ni/Cr plating. Apart from using EP, there is always an alternative which is mechanical Polish using polishing compound like green rouge
⇦ on
eBay or
Amazon [affil link]
and etc. However, mechanical polishing cannot polish easily on complicated parts or hard to reach corner of the shape.
To check whether the parts is SS or Ni-Cr Plated, I normally use a very simple magnet to check, but the base of the Ni-Cr plated parts must be steel :).
Good luck.
- Singapore
We have stainless steel fittings (T304SS, tees, crosses and elbows)can be mirror polish ID as well as OD to a chrome like mirror finish. From experience... this can be done without electropolishing. Also, customers using True #8 mirror finish sheets can weld and polish out the welds (semiconductor equipments) to a seamless joint. It's an art that requires experience and know how.
Michael Liu Taylor
specialty stainless steel distributor - Dallas, Texas
March 29, 2009
If you use #8 (mirror) finished stainless (other names are 600 polished, and lineal buffed tubing) to start out with it, all you will need to do is touch up the fab/weld marks after.
After fabbing you can have the parts electropolished which will increase the corrosion resistance, remove all weld/heat discoloration, polish and brighten in one step. And it will be cheaper than labour involved in mechanically polishing.
electropolishing shop - North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
September 20, 2009
Sorry! Finishing.com is temporarily Read-Only.
Ted Mooney is retiring but I have several offers to take it over.
We're working hard to make sure we find it the best new home.