This is my first Stainless Steel order. I order a set in plastic (see my other post) and now they are here in Stainless Steel. They look great, but do need a polish on the front face to be truely usable as Cufflinks
Get some wet/dry finishing paper 200 grit or finer. Glue a 4" square onto a dead flat surface (piece of plate glass). Then just rub the face of the cuff link against this until the desired finish is obtained. Works great and results should be perfectly flat. -G
Although I must say, it almost seems fun to leave them unpolished in a formal situation. Either way, lovely work
I think it would be really cool to dunk the piece in a blackening solution and then grind/polish the face to boost the contrast of the design... But definitely looks wicked cool... Marc
They look very nice! If you hit the surface with sandpaper etc, you'll leave noticable edges to the design... some of those edges can be rough. It depends how you feel about it, but I'd just hit them with a wire wheel (brass works well) followed by a good buffing with a proprietory metal polish and felt wheel... it brings the surfaces up to a shine whilst still leaving the 'printing detail' (which can be a very good conversation point)
Contrasting colors and surface finishes can look super. Propriatory patina chemicals for coloring copper & bronze all work well on these printed parts. You can also use heat color the parts. Several minutes at 310C and parts will turn a nice dark bronze color. Then just face off the links as mentioned above to remove print lines. This looks great! The detail really jumps out. One caveat, parts are delivered with a coating of acrylic lacquer which needs to be stripped off before attempting DIY coloring. Another way to go is order the parts with a pre-colored finish and just work the front surface. If the face off operation creates sharp edges just carefully knock the burr off with the same wet dry abrasive paper. I often glue narrow strips of this material to a scrap of strip wood so it acts like a file. -G
What? MSDS for stainless doesn't mention that... and unless that's a new developement, I've seen no evidence of any plastic coating when heat treating stainless. Please explain some more. Cheers.
The acrylic coat (Incralac), pertains only to parts that have been ordered as antique bronze, polished or plated. All other parts as simply bead blasted before shipping.
Oh, ok... Incralac - (methyl methacrylate copolymer incorporating benzotriazole) An exterior grade clear one-part lacquer for use on brass and copper... make sense Cheers
Hi all, I had always planned to polish the surface, which I have done with 400 grit wet/dry, then finished them off with 1500 grit, to make them shine. All in all about 30 minutes worth of work for the set. Attached are the finished articles