Metal Polishing Compounds & Buffing Wheels EXPLAINED

In this video, I'm going to go over a

comprehensive guide on buffing wheels

and buffing compounds, polishing

stainless steel and polishing aluminum.

We have a system for polishing aluminum

and we have a system for polishing

stainless steel and steel. I thought I

would go over that for you guys. That

way you can kind of have all of your qu

questions answered. I'll be answering

little questions as far as safety, as

far as raking, as far as how much

compound to uh to load onto the buffing

wheel as well. So, these are all things

that you're going to need to know. And

something I do want to mention is that

this is going to cover, I would say, 90%

of cases. There's going to be your 10%

of cases where you may be some

professional that does this every single

day. And you might be like, "Oh, well, I

use this and that and that's totally

cool." I'm just going over the general

use case for this stuff for most people,

for people that are starting out and

people that just want a good explanation

of everything. That way, they can uh

know what to buy uh for whatever their

job is. We'll go ahead and get into

first the uh sanding because the sanding

is going to be basically the same for

both. Whether you're polishing aluminum,

this is our aluminum polishing system,

or you're polishing stainless steel or

steel, this is the system for that. Uh

we have our uh sanding. Uh you're

basically going to use either a 5 in or

6in sanding disc, whatever you're

comfortable with or whatever the tool is

that you have there in your shop. And

you're gonna typically uh some typical

rules of thumb for sanding before

getting into your metal polishing is if

your nail gets caught on the scratch or

if you have pitting or like heavy

oxidation or rust, you're going to want

to get that out with sanding. And now

the coarser you go, the more sanding

you're going to have to do to get back

to the 400 or 600 grit scratches that

these systems are going to take out.

That means if you go down to a two 220

grit, you're going to have to go 220

grit, 320, 400, or 600. One of one of

the two, 400 or 600. The the least

aggressive you go, the least amount of

sanding you'll have to do to get back to

that 400 or 600 grit. I always recommend

patch testing or patch sanding a certain

area and then polishing that. That way,

that's going to encompass the job that

you're going to have to do for if it's

yourself or for it's a customer or what

have you. That's a general rule of thumb

on the sanding. again applies to both

the aluminum polishing and the stainless

steel polishing. Now I do want to cover

the safety part. The safety uh safety

flanges that we have here are 4 in in

diameter and these are going to work on

the buffing wheel like you see here. It

works on all of them. These cover the

whole 4 in essentially from here to

here. The real important thing about

these safety flanges is they cover these

metal teeth that you see. You'll

sometimes see with some of the benchtop

polishers that they have uh 3-in plates

that comes with them. That pretty much

only covers this area. It does not cover

the teeth, and that's the important part

that we need to cover with these safety

flanges. As you can see here, they both

go like this. Then you're going to have

your lock nut that tightens everything

in like that. But as you can see, that's

the important part. These buffing wheels

are spinning at 3500 RPM all the way up

to 6,000 RPM sometimes. So, this is

super important that you buy these

safety flanges to protect yourself so

you go home to your wife and kids or

boyfriend, whatever. Uh, it's it's just

a super important thing. Make sure you

use the safety flanges. Then, as far as

actually raking here, we'll cover the

general rules of thumb with raking. As

this is on your right angle grinder or

your benchtop polisher spinning,

basically, as you can see here, these

are fresh buffing wheels. They have not

been broken in. You're going to hold

this rake up to this wheel. We also sell

these in actually two handle form as

well, but this is the single handle

rake. Uh both do the same thing. It's

just a matter of preference. But

basically, as this is spinning, you hold

this up to here and this will rake in or

break in the edges of this buffing

wheel. That way, you can go go in and go

apply your compound or load your

compound. And how you do that is

basically it's a it's about a second to

second and a half as you just kind of

round it around this buffing wheel. You

don't need to hold it up to it for 5

seconds. Totally unnecessary. You do not

need to do that. Just a second, a to

second and a half. And another thing

where you're going to want to bring your

rake back is you're going to get either

aluminum or again stainless steel or

steel caked or congealed with the

compound buildup that's going to be on

the edges of this wheel. And when that

uh when there's too much buildup, it's

going to cause some burning on the

metal. And uh that's a cause of a lot of

people's problems is they just they they

never rake out the buffing wheel again

and get all of that stuff off of there.

So go in, rake the buffing wheel again,

and then go and apply your compound

again. That way, you're dealing with a

fresh surface again when you're

polishing. That's uh that's kind of

general rules of thumb for raking and

applying compound. We'll get into the

aluminum polishing system. These are

what's called if you see the orange and

the yellow or the red and the pink,

these are what's called mill treatments.

They take essentially this untreated

material and we'll go send it to a mill

treatment house somewhere here in the

states and they apply a certain starch

with a coloring to the material to give

it a certain stiffness. It's kind of

like sanding. We have our aggressive uh

buffing wheels and it goes down to the

least least aggressive or like the

softest. That way you're putting your

final touches once you get to this stage

versus this one you're still kind of

taking out scratch marks if you will.

This is going to be the orange is going

to be obviously a a heavier cut than the

than the yellow. We call this our cut

stage. We call this our color stage and

we call this our show shine stage.

Usually it's in three steps, although

you can get away with two steps in in a

lot of cases. You can just do the uh cut

and color. And you know, most people

will call it a day. It's maybe I don't

know, three out of 10 people that could

tell the difference between that this

two-step process and a three-step

process. But if it's a labor of love

type situation and you want to spend the

extra time, go ahead and do this this uh

process. We have our tripley compound

with our orange mill treatment. Then

you're going to pair your yellow mill

treatment paired with your green rouge

compound bar. And then your final step

is going to be this dome flannel super

soft wheel paired with the uh purple

compound bar. These things are super

fine finishing. It's going to give you

an amazing luster. Uh, this is kind of

what we're known for is this bar is

really going to put the nice final final

touches on your um on your shine. That's

the aluminum polishing. I do have this

here. This our no scratch paint and it's

paired with our UBM which is our

untreated. It's essentially called the

UBM wheel. Unbiased muslin. These two

pair together if you're polishing

putting the final final finishes on say

woods or plastics. No scratch paint with

our untreated UBM wheel. And then we'll

get into our stainless steel and our

steel polishing, which I have that

system here. We have our red mill

treatment buffing wheel paired with our

SS77 stainless compound bar. It's called

stainless bar, although you can use it

with stainless steel and steel or when

you're polishing stainless steel and

steel rather. But you can also switch

this out with our SS11 black magic

compound bar, which is more of a cut in

color. Not quite as aggressive as this

one, although that one is also it looks

almost the same. Uh it's probably a

little bit lighter color black, but that

one you're going to use when it's very

thin stainless. This one is for uh

polishing thicker metals, uh non-porous

metals, stainless steel or steel where

uh you need something heavier duty. This

is also a heavy bar. So, we sell these

in small bars as well. Pair that with

the red red buffing wheel. Whether it's

a black magic or it's this one, pair it

with the red as your first step. Your

second step is going to be the green

rouge compound bar paired with the pink

uh milt-reated buffing wheel. You'll

sometimes see us pair a yellow airway

buffing or I'm sorry, a yellow compound

bar with a with a pink uh miltreated

buffing wheel. That's also great.

Honestly, they're they're very very

similar. I just kind of put this one

here because this is a very universal

bar. You can use it for both aluminum

and stainless, which helps for a lot of

people uh to not have to buy multiple

bars. But, uh yellow is also a great

option. And you're you're not going to

notice a difference unless you do this

all day every day. Green rouge bar is

the way to go with the pink milt-reated

buffing wheel. And then for stainless

steel, our final step is going to be our

purple rouge compound bar paired with

the UBM unbiased muslin wheel. Now, one

thing I do want to mention about

stainless steel and steel polishing is

that because the metal is thicker and

it's non-porous and it doesn't really

hold actually it holds the heat more so

than the aluminum. It's really with this

system, it's it's more aggressive

products because it takes a lot more to

kind of melt that surface of the

stainless steel and the steel and get

that metal to move uh and get it to

polish. That's why we have this specific

system. It's not just cuz we want to

sell you more products or whatever. Uh

it's it's really that we've developed

this these treatments to be stiffer and

really break down the surface of the

metal much quicker than than these

products here. and and obviously the the

compound bar here is a really crucial

step to to that process. This is a

aluminum polishing and stainless steel

polishing. Again, this is going to cover

most cases, but if you guys have more

questions, please leave uh leave some

messages in the comments or let me know

uh how we can how we can help you in

your in your metal polishing process.

But thank you so much. My name is

Garrett with Maverick Abrasives, Combat

Abrasives, and Renegade Products.