polisher's question? milled aluminum finish

After machining,punching or any kind of processing on aluminum sheet, what is the easiest way to make the aluminum sheet have a milled finish look? timesaver? belt sander with high grit? da sander w/ high grit? I am looking for easy solution not necessarily cheap. thanks

 

Use a 'Mouse' sander with a scotchbight pad

 

Factory milled finishes are almost impossible to duplicate.

For something close, use a fine abrasive impregnated disc, the ones that are supposed to be improvements over wire wheel. Use slow speeds on a hand drill. Go in one direction (which is harder than it sounds) for a milled look. It's easier to try and hit it from all sorts of random angles for tumbled finish.

--Matt

 

time saver.
That's what most mills finish sheet with.
If they finish it at all, of course.

 

When I was doing some work for a manufacturer of fire apparatus they said they used milled finish aluminum on certain areas of their trucks because the extra surface area created by the milling process was very efficient at disappating heat. They did theirs with some sort of a grinding disc.

 

Have a look at this-

http://www.emazing.com.au/tools/ptx.htm



.

 

We used a combo Scotch Brite/Emery Paper wheel (looked like the wheel pictured) in my fab shop on a die grinder at medium RPM to blend a satin/mill finish on some 6" Stainless square tube after welding. Worked well on that but doing a large area might be difficult to get a really even finish.

 

Powerbuffing with greaseless abrasive is pretty fast on large areas, just choose the grit you want to finish at.
Bladder wheels are rapid, but take more skill.
Most factory sheet stock is finished at around 180 to 240 grit with a timesaver.
If it's any finer it's often described as bright or polished
The grain on household equipment, hi-fi's (showing how old I am!)
fridges, stuff like that is generally anywhere between 320 and 600, but household stuff tends to be stainless anyway.

 

I hate to sound dumb, polisher, but what's a timesaver?

(By the way, anyone looking at this should ask polisher for his polishing e-mail booklet. He knows his stuff!)

--Matt

 

a timesaver is a big wet or dry sander that has an rubber belt on it , and you feed the metal through it ,feed rate and sanding depth is set by the operator, usually about 3 ft wide, for a normal job fab shop, big sanding belt standing vertical and puts a sanded finish for painting or plating or bending the finished part, giving it a cl*** A, B OR C finish depending on customer demands
also good for taking the wrong colored paint from the metal the idiot on the paintline that cant read what to use for the right colors been there

 

looks like i'm buying a time saver. used of co****. new starts at $11k for a dry 30 inch.thanks for the input.

 

If you want a time saver used, you got to use ebay.
They're on there all of the time from really big commercial units to cheaper units for smaller shops.