How to Restore STAINLESS STEEL Trim for Classic Cars
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- Restoring stainless steel trim for a classic car or truck is a time consuming task. This video shows how to remove dents from stainless trim, how to remove scratches in stainless and how to polish stainless steel trim on a classic car or truck. Our example includes four window reveal moldings for a 1966 Chevy Nova. They were dented and scratched, and needed serious restoration to match our new paint job on the car. Follow along as we hammer out the dents, file the stainless and then sand with various grits to accomplish a scratch free finish, and then polish to a beautiful shine with a bench buffing wheel.
#restoration #stainless #classiccars
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Thank you for this video! I'm going o
To have a lot of stainless to restore when I get my toy here. I found my dads '71 Chevelle wagon that he sold in '91 and I'm buying it back.
Great job on fixing and cleaning up that trim man. Respect. Can't wait to see it on that '66 deuce.
The outside is getting very close to completion. Next will be interior but we’ll probably drive it as is for a little while.
Couple of things here. Sisal wheels are able to pull out 320 grit sanding marks. They are very aggressive. So when you sand all the way to 3000, and then hit it with a sisal and emery compound, you're just introducing 320 equivelant marks back into the piece. Most professional metal polishers stop sanding at about 600 grit and start with a medium cut buff/compound. Color/polish after that. Second, don't mix compounds on the same wheel. You're running your medium cut right over the top of your aggressive emery on that sisal wheel. You're fighting yourself on introducing aggressive scratches back into the piece. Sure it turns out shiny when you've gone through it all, but it could be 100% better.
Great information! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching!
i am restoring a 1965 442, i have a lot of stainless to polish. where do i get the black, red and brown compound in the blocks like that? i am used to buffing and polishing paint, i have the patience, and sand papers i need, just need to buy the machine and pads. thanks for the video
I got mine from Summit Racing. www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-905026
@@byrdsgarage thanks
Thanks for the video, I'm trying to learn how to polish my trim, I just bought a polishing kit from Eastwood. It also has a DVD with it on "how to" and it's looks to be about 10 or 20 years old. One question if I may. Most of my trim, I have '71 Monte Carlo doesn't have deep scratches or dents, but it has the ashy look on it as if it may be hard water spots is the best I can describe it. This stuff will not come out. I've tried the "name brand chrome polishes", but I still end up with" the stained water spot" look. What do I do, no dents and no deep scrapes. Where do I start?
Sorry I didn't respond to this sooner. First it's important to know whether the trim pieces are stainless steel or aluminum. Many of the aluminum trim pieces have an anodized coating on them, which results in the spotted finish you're describing. No amount of polishing fixes it. If it turns out to be aluminum with the anodized coating, you will need to strip the coating so that you can lightly sand and polish the aluminum. I have another video about polishing aluminum trim. You can take a look here and see if it matches your symptoms.
ua-cam.com/video/JpVQxRhO18A/v-deo.html
Nice!
Where do you buy your compound?
I bought it from Summit Racing. They have a nice selection of wheels and compounds.
The buffer you're using is too weak for the job. The tiny central pneumatic one is supposed to be used for small items like jewelery. When you can stall the motor with your work piece, it's too weak of a buffer. Yours is really meant for jewelery or small items. I have a 1.5 HP belt driven pedestal buffer that's bolted to the ground and can handle any amount of force and you can really lean into it. I would say 3/4 HP is the absolute bare minimum for doing any large type of items (hubcaps, bumpers, etc)