Stainless trim - scratch repair

I picked up some really cool '67 Thunderbird buckets for my Fairlane. The stainless trim is really rough in places, like it was dragged across a garage floor. Is this too far gone to be saved? I could always paint it but I would rather not.

I've never polished any metal before - what's the best way?

If it's stainless they progressively sand those down then buff back up. It's a pain but worth the effort for a car like yours.

Beercan

I guess my question is what to use to sand down and polish? 400 grit? What kind of wheel do I need to get to polish it? Something that fits on an angle grinder or a drill? Recommendations on polishing compound?

Doesn't need to be show quality, b/c the rest of the car certainly isn't. If I could get it 80% of the way there I'd be happy.

You have to use something that is gonna take those scratches out and leave smaller scratches then progressively increase the grit till you see it start to shine. what your doing is removing scratches as you increase the grit and it will start shining. Yo can then move to using micron sanding paper which the lower the number is finer. Polish with a cloth wheel on a die grinder with jewelers rouge

Well nevermind - it appears to be chrome plated aluminum. I started sanding and went immediately through the shiny layer and into a duller metal layer. Can clearly see the layer of chrome plating.

It will have to be painted. No big deal since it's on the back of the seat and will still look nice.

BigIrish said:

Well nevermind - it appears to be chrome plated aluminum. I started sanding and went immediately through the shiny layer and into a duller metal layer. Can clearly see the layer of chrome plating.

It will have to be painted. No big deal since it's on the back of the seat and will still look nice.

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If it's like my old 64 Galaxie bucket seats and t-Bird seats I had, it's anodized aluminum. Research how to strip the anodizing off, then it'll polish up fairly easy. Then when you're done you can just clearcoat the pieces so they don't tarnish.

Alternately, you can do what I did on some pieces.. have them chrome powder coated. The Eastwood kit is cheap and their powder holds up well. The valve cover on my Daytona is done this way.

look up pauls chrome , they might replate them, I saw it somewhere on a show, they were plating plastic, ,and animal skulls , all kinds of stuff, but if its not really a show stopper restoration, I guess you can do just about anything under the sun, hammertone paint, or whatever, the sky is the limit, hope that helps,