Polishing Cast Iron

Hi,

I just bought a whole bunch of back issues of ME magazine and came across an article that mentioned polishing cast iron castings as an alternative to a painted finish. Advantages quoted were freedom from the finish chipping off.

I have aquired a set of castings for a Stent T&C grinder and I thought this might be an interesting and unusual way of finishing them. Has anyone tried this technique and have any comments about it ?

The original article recommended using old files and emery before using buffing wheels attached to the spindle of an off-hand grinder, I wondered about using those "flap" type wheels that appear to be made of axially arranged stiff emery board. Anyone tried these at all for this purpose ?

Thanks and Happy New Year,

Mike

In article , Mike writes

I've done something similar, but on a rather larger piece of CI...

A friend asked me to machine-down a 'jewellery stretcher' for his wife. I *thought* he meant a small tapered shaft for stretching rings to fit fingers, but what turned-up was a casting for a device to stretch bracelets to fit arms - 4' long by 6" diameter...

Fortunately it *just* fit between centres on my lathe (a Myford 254) so, having turned it to the appropriate taper, I polished it with old files followed by coarse emery, fine emery, oiled emery and, finally, Kleeneze metal polish. I ended up with a really nice polished surface but it was, without a doubt, the filthiest bit of metalwork I've ever done - it took weeks for the carbon to completely disappear from my hands (and out of my snot !).

The moral - if you're going to try this, use barrier cream and wear a mask.