Get yourself one of those tumblers you use to clean and polish cartrige brass when reloading and some walnut media...
I got a HF buffer and thier stand, a couple SS buffing wheels, some compound, a rubber mat to shoot the bolts out of your hand onto. then get busy.
I usually gring the marks off the head with my bench grinder stone. Then i have polish wheels made up with 120, 180 and finally 240 grit making sure i always cross polish the heads of the bolts so the minute scratches are not all one direction. Use lots of the proper grease for the wheels to last longer. The final process is to buff using a brown or white colour bar on a stiff buffing air flex wheel. Doing this guarantees you of a shiny mirror like finish.
I used to polish stainless bolts at work fairly often. I used vicegrips to hold the bolt (careful not to damage the threads) a good buffing wheel and compound formulated for stainless. Good safety glasses are a must! You might want to file or grind any numbers or hardening marks off first then sand smooth to maybe 600 grit and they will come out looking like chrome!
I chuck them in my vertical mill (drill press) and polish with a metal polish applied to a rag. Oh yeah, SLOW setting is the name of the game here.
Chuck the bolts in your cordless drill. Then grind any marks off the end with your choice of grinder(setting your drill to the slow speed and running the drill while you grind the end on the bench grinder works great). Then start with 80 grit, 220, 400, 800, then polish. The drill is your friend, the grinder can't snatch that bolt out of your hand and hit you in the hip with it (yea, hurts like hell) You can use the drill to sand them and buff them also. You can polish the nuts by cutting off a bolt and double nutting them on the end of the stud that is chucked in your cordless drill.
I use a belt sander with 320 grit to get the hardening marks and numbers off, then a sisal wheel and finally a cushion-sewn buff on a mounted buffer with appropriate compounds for the last two.
I used all SS bolts in my 62. Polishing them is relatively easy. A sanding belt with decreasing grit belts will produce a very smooth head, then using a couple of good buffing wheels, one less agressive for the actual polishing. and the three decreasing grit compounds will. Clean each wheel between compounds and when build up occurrs. A clean wheel and compound will work better. Get you a great looking bolt. Let the belt and wheels do the work, DO NOT force feed. does not take very much effort to get what you want. There are great How To instructions in the library.
The smartest thing you can do is to weld a nut into the end of a piece of conduit or similar material long enough to hold comfortably then screw the bolt into the work holder and double nut it. That makes it very easy to work them on a buffer, rubber wheel or whatever method you choose and doesn't risk screwing up threads or having the bolt ripped from your grip and thrown at you.
I use a long bolt, like 6" long and then double nut one of those threaded rod nuts (they are abut an inch long). I then use a 90 degree die grinder with a 2 inch self stick type pad. I use 320, 400, 600, 800 and then 1000 if needed. The paper is 6" PSA paper cut to fit the 2" pad. The pad is very firm. Out in the buff shed I use a 12" sisil wheel at 1700 rpm with the grey emory compound, then a medium green or yellow stainless compound on an open-loose wheel 10 to 12" in dia. at 1700 rpm. Lastly is a high polish dark green compound ( it is very dry). I use a 8" wheel at 3600rpm for the last buff and always pull up for the last stroke. Fritz
quick way angle grinder with 60 grit ,After that da with 80 wetsand 220. 400 ,600 .1500 and it you choose to polish thats up to you .only do the tops with a power tool .IDsay you could do a bolt every 10 minutes this way .Oh and by the way lay wetsand paper on your knee and rub bolt backand forth .Sloppy working conditions but works....
If the bolts are big enough, I grip them with my cotton-gloved hands. However, polishing metal for a living lends a strong grip and a good sense of spinning things. I usually use a 600 grit belt to remove the markings and such, then go straight to a finishing compound on a stiff sewn buffing wheel; skipping many of the usual steps in polishing because bolts are so little and my machines are so powerful and oversized for bolts. If they are too small, I use pliers clamped over some sort of insulator to protect the threads. The double nut method is better (vice grips are great,) but takes too much time when fighting the clock. Since you aren't in a rush to make money on it, I suggest the double nut method and as many grit steps as you need. By the time you are finishing up you will have found the most efficient way and be done. The first parts I ever polished with powered tools were bolts and nuts; they are great learning pieces; just watch your toes.
I use two old steel nuts locked together on the threads and a vice grip on the nuts. Then I start using my 1" wide vertical belt sander to take off all the head markings. And finally to the buffing wheels and compounds. I recently did a 1930 LaSalle Roadster with all stainless. Those bolt heads almost all had to be reshaped to a rounded head hex. The belt sander did a good job on rounding also.
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