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Thread: Polishing a stainless gas tank

  1. #21
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
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    Still nothing from Mile High Polishing. This is why I typically do this stuff myself. I get sick of all the runaround you get from these guys, and the risk of paying too much for shoddy work in the end.

    Some time after I started my Nomad build I needed to have some rear tubs made. I spent quite a bit of time building a wooden buck to the shape I wanted. I just wanted someone to form the tubs, and I'd trim them to fit my car. I talked to a guy at a rod shop a couple hours from me and he said he'd do it. A year later nothing had been done so I told him to just trash the buck and I was going to do it myself. I finished them and I think I did as good or better job than I would have gotten from him. Since then NOBODY has done anything on my car but me, that is until I paid a guy to paint the frame.

    I've spent about 3 more hours this morning working on it and all the scratches and defects have been removed and everything is ready for final polishing. I figure I have about 11 hours in it so far, part of which was removing the scratches from the medium scotchbrite. I did use it again this morning on some sanding marks I found, but it was work out some and gave a finer finish. I estimate 20 hours by the time I'm finished.
    Last edited by chevynut; 10-01-2015 at 12:06 PM.
    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


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    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
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    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
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  2. #22
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
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    I never did hear back from Mile High Polishing so I just kept working on my tank. I got the hole drilled for the tank drain bung and I'm trying to figure out how I want to do the vent. Here's the progress on polishing so far. Like Rodney said, this is not as easy as it seems. It's really hard to get a uniform shine. I polished the top first so I could get a process that worked. Nobody will ever see that part once the body is on. I also polished the fuel pump unit cover just cuz.






    I think I'm pushing 16-18 hours on this already and only have the top fully polished. The rest of it is smooth down to the final polishing which is going to take a few more hours.
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    Last edited by chevynut; 10-03-2015 at 08:32 AM.
    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


    Other vehicles:

    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
    56 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    57 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    1962 327/340HP Corvette
    1961 Willys CJ3B Jeep
    2001 Porsche Boxster S
    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
    2019 GMC Sierra Denali Duramax

  3. #23
    Registered Member WagonCrazy's Avatar
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    You're fully committed now. Keep going...
    1957 Nomad- LS1/T56 on C4 chassis
    1959 Fleetside Apache 1/2 ton, shortbed, big window, 327ci.

  4. #24
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
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    Now that I'm 80% of the way there I finally got an estimate from Mile High Polishing after I asked if they got my pics. I doubt I would have heard anything if I hadn't sent another text message after sending my pics as he requested.

    I told him I had it all down to a very fine Scotchbrite finish and it just needed final finishing, and he could see that in the pics. He replied "from the looks of it were going to need to surface all the grinding off, then polish". I don't know what "surface all the grinding off" means, but this joker is sounding just like Jose at Ogden Chrome. There is no "grinding" to be taken off. It was already so smooth that sanding with 600 grit takes it to the next level, and 1200 takes it to almost a mirror finish after that. In fact if you keep sanding with 600 dry, it really shines.

    He said it would run $350-500. You know where it would end up. Would you pay that?
    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


    Other vehicles:

    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
    56 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    57 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    1962 327/340HP Corvette
    1961 Willys CJ3B Jeep
    2001 Porsche Boxster S
    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
    2019 GMC Sierra Denali Duramax

  5. #25
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    Well there's reflections in your photos, and to me that means you've made nice progress. And it also means that if you send it out, you will pay for the work you've already done. So keep going and quit when you're satisfied.

    What I'd like to see on the forum is a single post reviewing what you did in terms of methods, materials, and hours - that would be very helpful to me and others. Not that you haven't reported it, but a summary would be great.

    I have a Rock Valley tank that I need to decide what to do with, if anything.

  6. #26
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
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    Well I sure learned a lot polishing this tank.....it's a lot of work . Here's some things I learned....

    * Mill finish stainless is actually pretty smooth from the mill.
    * If you build one yourself, see if you can get polished stainless to start with.
    * If you want a pre-made polished tank, see if the manufacturer offers one polished for a reasonable price adder.
    * If you can get this done for $300-500 PAY for it.
    * Polishing is much more about sanding than it is buffing.

    If you still want to do it yourself, don't make the same mistake I did. I was given some advice to start with 220 paper, go to 320, then 600 and keep sanding until it's smooth. 600 is nowhere near fine enough to get a smooth mirror finish. In fact, 3000 isn't fine enough for a mirror finish. When I started polishing I hit the welded areas with what I thought was fine scotchbrite disc on my die grinder, but it was medium. That would have been fine if I only hit the sanding marks from smoothing the welds. But I went over the entire tank with it which was a big mistake. Then I used a fine scotchbrite disc and hit it again . This was a few hours work alone. I thought I was getting somewhere so I attacked the whole tank with 320 on a DA dry. Then I went to 600 on a DA wet. That got it where I could see myself in the tank, bit I could still see scratches from the scotchbrite and probably the 320. So I kept sanding....and sanding...and sanding. I tried buffing too soon and it did virtually nothing. So I had to go back to sanding. After the 600 grit I went to 1200 on a DA. Then I hand sanded with 2000 wet. Then I tried 2500 wet. I finally ordered some 3000 for my DA and used that. It got the tank to a fairly good shine, but it was blotchy. So I kept sanding some more until I finally hit it with a small buffing wheel on my die grinder and green compound. It left some "brushed" marks in the right light so I hit that with another buffing wheel with white compound. That was better, but it still had very fine scratches....so I finished it off with Meguiars's Diamond Cut paint polishing compound and a polisher which helped quite a bit I don't recommend this trial-and-error process though. Here's what I'd recommend at this point:

    * Assess what you have to start with by using 600 grit and no coarser on a DA sander. The paper dulls fairly quickly so you need quite a bit.
    * If you have defects that you want to smooth out, go to a coarser grit only on the defects and get back to 600. A fine scotchbrite pad on a die grinder works well to remove this coarser stuff.
    * Once you finish everything with 600, go to 1200 grit and keep going until polished. If there are scratches, go back and smooth them with slightly coarser grit and go back up.
    * Finish off sanding with 3000 grit. This might be good enough for you, but if you want a mirror finish you have to go further.
    * Buff with green buffing compound using some sort of buffer.
    * If it's not a mirror finish, use some paint polishing compound like Meguiar's Diamond Cut to blend all the very fine scratches.

    Sue, you can start with coarse paper and go up from there, but it adds a TON more work to do it that way. I would only go there if you really need to. You can stop at around 2000 grit and sand by hand to get a very fine brushed look that hides a lot of defects if you want to. I thought about doing that but decide to keep working. I think I ended up atover 40 hours in this tank, at least twice what I thought it would take.

    Here's some progress pics and what my tank looks like finished. It's not perfect, but it's pretty dang good. If I look closely I can still see some faded scratches from the 320 and probably the medium scotchbrite pads.









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    Last edited by chevynut; 10-24-2015 at 04:07 PM.
    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


    Other vehicles:

    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
    56 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    57 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    1962 327/340HP Corvette
    1961 Willys CJ3B Jeep
    2001 Porsche Boxster S
    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
    2019 GMC Sierra Denali Duramax

  7. #27
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    Sounds like your best tip is not to sand with a grit that's too coarse so that you're effectively going backwards. Makes sense to me.

  8. #28
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
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    Yes Rick, I think starting with the finest grit paper you can is the best way to go to save time. I got to thinking near the end of this that maybe a diamond grinding pad would work great on this stuff. I had a granite countertop installed and the installers had a pad that they put onto a 4" grinder to smooth the granite at seams. Wish I'd thought of it sooner.

    The first set below even includes 6000 grit.


    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wet-Dry-Diam...25.m3641.l6368

    http://www.homedepot.com/p/Archer-US...g&gclsrc=aw.ds

    http://www.toolskitchen.com/4-dry-po...FQmoaQodrjwL5g
    Last edited by chevynut; 10-24-2015 at 07:19 PM.
    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


    Other vehicles:

    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
    56 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    57 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    1962 327/340HP Corvette
    1961 Willys CJ3B Jeep
    2001 Porsche Boxster S
    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
    2019 GMC Sierra Denali Duramax

  9. #29
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    polishinng fuel tank

    Hi Would you be interested in selling that tank and making a new one out ot mirror finish stainless.Iwould be interested in purchasing the tank
    Mick

  10. #30
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
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    Mick, I'm not interested in selling the tank after all that work!
    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


    Other vehicles:

    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
    56 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    57 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    1962 327/340HP Corvette
    1961 Willys CJ3B Jeep
    2001 Porsche Boxster S
    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
    2019 GMC Sierra Denali Duramax

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