Nothing looks better than a piece of metal polished up to a mirror finish. It can be time consuming, but man does it look great on your vehicle! Polishing metal takes a lot of steps to get you that perfect surface finish. If you’re unsure what products to get to execute those steps we’ve put together the must-haves for polishing metal below. Let us know your favorite tricks of the trade in the comment below!
Dual Speed Buff Motor- Having control over the speed of your buffer and your parts is very important. Our 1HP dual speed buff motor has the power to buff at high speeds and do heavy cutting of metal (when paired with the appropriate compound and buff wheel) down to finesse work at the low speed on stainless trim, aluminum, plated parts, and other delicate items. Get yourself a starter kit with the buff motor, stand, and necessary wheels and compounds HERE.
Buffing Compounds- There are a lot of compounds on the market for cutting, buffing, and polishing metal. In the end of the day you’ll find 2-4 compounds that you use the most. If your just starting out and you’re doing mainly automotive parts made of steel and aluminum you will only need a few compounds to get you going. Start out with our buffing compound must-have kits HERE.
Expander Wheel– If you’re starting out with a part that is rough and needs some heavy cutting done to remove casting marks, pits, imperfections, or weld seams, an Expander Wheel will make quick work and level out rough areas in metal. The wheel has relief holes in it that allow some give when pressing the work piece onto the wheel, but is stiff enough that you can knock down highs and lows quickly. We like to “rough-in” difficult areas with the expander wheel in varying steps of finer and finer sandpaper until we can go to a tight-sewn buff wheel and cutting compound. This isn’t a necessity, but once you have it in your arsenal you won’t go back to hand sanding unless you have no other choice!
Buff Rake– Most of us aren’t made of money and we need to make our tools and consumables last as long as we possibly can. Occasionally cleaning your buff wheel with a rake will pull out old compound and metallic build up from buffing and polishing. This will refresh your wheel to almost as good as new and keeps you going without buying another wheel.
Metal Protectant- You put all of that hard work into polishing a part, seal up the surface with Eastwood Metal Protect. This coating cures to be nearly invisible and won’t hardly dull your surface, keeping the high shine for numerous show seasons.