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Up Topic Welding Industry / General Welding Discussion / Stainless Steel Polishing
- - By LonnieG Date 07-24-2001 01:42
I have a real interesting dillema here for anyone who has dealt with stainless steel polishing on a large scale. We are currently fabrication some elevator hoistways for an elevated train system in Puerto Rico. The hoistway is made out of 4x4x1/4 tube verticals that are put together in an L shape(basically 3 to a corner) with 10x4x1/4 and 12x4x1/4 horizonals spaced out along the length of the verticals. The hoistways dimensions are 40' length by 9-8 wide by 9-1 deep. The unit all said and done weighs close to 8 tons. This is all made out of 316L stainless, we have no problem with the welding but the polishing of the stainless is killing us, we are making the units in four sides, polishing then putting them together. We are using dynashears with tracks to get our 180 grit directional polish. We sand it with sandpaper and then finish it with scotchbrite. But it seems that once we got the unit together welded it and now we have some areas that look like they are scratched up. If we try to fix these areas we will have to repolish the whole unit over again. If you were in my shoes would you wait to put your final polish on the units until you got them together and welded out or is there something we can do to protect the stainless while we are putting the sides together. We have 18 more of these to build and if we do not figure something out we are going to lose our butts on this job, any wisdom from you fellas is greatly appreciated.
Lonnie
Parent - - By CHGuilford (****) Date 07-24-2001 14:29
When we build hand rails from stainless or aluminum, we polish the pipes first and then wrap them with heavy paper (I don't recall the name of it but the paper is flame retardent). We peel the paper back from the weld zone so as not to burn it up, then put it back after the weld is cooled. This helps to avoid scratching everything up. After fitting and welding, we then have to clean and polish welds and try to blend everything in. We haven't found an easier way so far.

Do you need to attain a specific degree of polish or are you looking for uniform appearance? If you don't have to have a polish, you could try glass bead blasting after going over weld joints and scratches with sand paper disks.
CHGuilford
Parent - - By LonnieG Date 07-25-2001 01:16
We are having to achieve a #3 finish which translated is either a 180 grit or 240 I can not remember which.

This paper that you use, does it stick to the material or do you have to wrap it?
Parent - By CHGuilford (****) Date 07-25-2001 13:06
We wrap it in a spiral pattern. It's about 12" wide with no adhesive.
CHGuilford
Up Topic Welding Industry / General Welding Discussion / Stainless Steel Polishing

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