How do you polish / finish stainless steel?

[its_34]

I would agree that going with a hand-finish or a flap sander would be better than a belt. If the belt is wide and the plate is not very flat, you may end up with a heavy polish on the high spots and have diffculty getting a uniform finish without removing a lot of surface. I would expect the Scotchbrite belts to be much better than grit in this regard.

My vote would be for leaving the welds exposed and not blending. I did this with a small bathroom towel rack and thought it looked really good as-welded.

[youngnstudly]

My thinking was that if Dave's wife wanted to tell her friends about the fancy stainless work that was in her kitchen, Dave might want to make the part he's fabricating look like it's a factory built part. While I do enjoy pretty welds, I also appreciate all the work that it takes to make something look like it was machined from a single piece of material, instead of welded using several pieces of material. If the finish work was blended nicely, anyone that glanced at it would think that it was a standard kitchen accessory bought from large chain appliance store. But it's mostly the wife's call since she's your customer (so to speak).

Keep in mind that welding is like a drug....the more you build things for your spouse, the more projects they ask you to build later on (once they gain confidence in you)! The trick is to not get hooked and overdose.

[DaveO]

Right now I'm planning a rectangular frame in SS angle to support the raised surface, with a round rod bent in a square U shape underneath for legs. Legs would be under the "short" side of the rectangle only to allow sliding the structure from side to side. That's the reason for using angle, to support the long span of whatever the surface material will be, and to prevent the surface from sliding sideways off the support. It would be cool to find some marble, maybe, I just haven't got that far yet.

The amount of exposed weld would be minimal, determined mostly by whether or not I choose an inside or outside weld at the corners, and color or texture matching of the SS is a nice-to-have rather than a gotta-have. I'm thinking the most visual impact will come from the surface material.

Near term I'm planning to get some steel round rod to practice precise bends with an OA torch and welding a length of round rod to a flat surface. Not sure, though, what OA heating does to the SS... do colors from heating buff out?

[its_34]

Sounds like a nice look. How large of a bar and what bend radius? Cold-bending would be best if the bar diameter is not too big and/or radius not too small. The heat discoloration could prove difficult to remove and acheive a uniform finish (it's also complicated by the new shape).

[DaveO]

All the angles would be 90*, and rod diameter I'm thinking 1/4" or so. Sounds like I should plan on cold bending.

Edit: I had the browser open for so long I missed Jakeru's post- I'll give the maroon Scotch brites a shot.

[its_34]

1/4" is definitely a cold bend and to just about any radius you want. With that it will also be very easy to tack up a simple bending jig or just find something round (pipe, rod, etc) and form a nice, smooth bend and make the parts consistent.