Stainless resto after fire.

There is a 57 Chevy at a local salvage yard that has alot of good straight stainless trim on it that I can use. However the yard had a grass fire and the 57 was burned. The trim looks very usuable but I'm unsure if it will polish out. Has anyone tried polishing stainless that's been through a fire?

 

Buy it reguardless... Provided the price is low.

Even if it cant be polished out, it can be bead-blasted and powder-coated black,,, or any color to match someones odd-resto-mod.

This stuff's getting harder to find every day.

 

Unless the trim saw enough heat to warp it, it should clean up.

 

Will polish up like new. If too badly heated it may be softened a littlle
but no problem to good polisher.

 

Thanks guys

 

grab some stainless polish and see what happens.

 

id go down there with some steel wool an polish and give it a go on the worst looking part...,or

 

I've polished black and blue heat stains off of stainless steel and even chrome before. I had some '57 Chevy bumper ends that the bolts were cut off of with a torch, and left blue stains on it (like a chromed header pipe) Some buffing compound and a little time with a rag took it all off.

As mentioned, if it didn't get warped, it should be fine. But DON'T bead blast it and don't use steel wool. That stuff is bad news for trim.

 

If you can polish it after welding it, a grass fire should be no problem.

 

Prolly just hit it with some wenol.. If there are deep scratches ive wet sanded 400, 1000,1500 and 2000 then hand rubbed the stuff.. Stainless can be a bitch to polish cause its so hard but it can be done. i did it this way cause im too cheap to buy a buffer
Dave

 

A time consuming method that works well for home builders is to sand out the trim with 240-400 grit wet paper (depending on the severity of the surface defects, contamination, scratches, etc) and then move to 600 wet, 1000 wet, and then hand polish with some Mothers type polish and a cloth that has a little roughness to it (like terry cloth, the back side of socks, etc.) I would think that would be sufficient in this case.

 

Go ahead and buy it, it's good. Please do yourself a favor and buy a buffer to poish it though. You can get one from Harbor freight that will do all the stainless you want. You can wet sand it to get scratches out 600-1000. Then buff it out with white compound lengthwise.

 

DO NOT use steel wool on it! It willleave microscopic bits of steel imbedded into the base metal and will rust. The same goes for a steel wire brush, manual or especally powered. I've done alot of food grade stainless steel transfer tubing insall and welding and beleive me it wiil be an ongoing nitemare.

All of the above mentioned ideas for polishing will work good. The fact that it is "fire damaged" might also be a barganing chip for you to get it at a good price.

 

buy it and buff it out, if i can polish stainless out after i weld it up then it shouldnt be a big deal so long as its not warped