Polishing Titanium - Not so hard after all.

For the longest time I was so afraid of getting a scratch or mar on my lights. I had no idea how to really polish out a blemish or make my Ti shine. I knew you could use a metal polish, Autosol seems to be a favorite and I've been happy with it, but did not know how to make a dulled piece of Ti shine. I've seen people saying that they use scothbrite pads of varying roughnesses, but from my experience they just scrapped up the metal and didn't help at all.

In my searches for the right tools for an upcoming project I was looking for something I could use to clean up Ti and started my search on Amazon looking for 800 and 1200 grit sandpaper. My search started to turn up these results for wet/dry polishing papers that could be used on cars with 1200, 2000 an even 3000 grit papers. I started reading reviews and was getting very close to buying a few different grits when I came across something from 3M called Micron Polishing Paper. The reviews were good and it came as a kit with 6 different with decreasing roughnesses starting with 30, 15, 9, 3, 2 and 1 micron. According to the back of a sheet of 1200 grit paper I have it is 15 micron.

I bought a pack of the polishing papers and I have been nothing less than amazed. They are not exactly paper but rather made of a tough fiber that gives it strength and flexibility. In the pictures below I am taking a McGizmo clip as it come from Don and then each following shot is after each step of the 6 papers. Each step is very subtle but when you look at them in sequence it is quite impressive and the finished clip has a very nice shine.

A little elbow grease required but anyone can do it. Enjoy!

Stock McGizmo clip:


30 Micron Paper


15 Micron Paper


9 Micron Paper


3 Micron Paper


2 Micron Paper


1 Micron Paper

Very cool!

Ti shelf queens can now be set free, knowing they can be shiny again!

Coooolllll....:huh:

What a great thread, SOYCD! Thank you. This is great information. My lights are all users, and they now look like it, especially my Haiku. I kind of like 'em that way, but if I want to sell them, it'd be nice to be able to refresh the finishes back to shiny-looking.

Nice job!

I must however admit that I like a ti light full of scratches. Since it's generally surface scratches, it add a bit of character to a light.

Thanks all. While I don't disagree that a light full of scratches has it's own sort of character I also like to have some shiny lights and clips to. I don't think I would polish my full light to the extent of the 1 micron paper like the clip. But, that is the great thing about these papers - you can stop at any step along the way when the surface of the light is just the way you like it.

Are these the colored plastic sheets they also use for polishing optic fibers? I have these in the lab....

obi

They're not really plastic, more like a fabric fiber. Have a search on amazon.com for them. not hard to find. I don't want to get in trouble for posting links.

On a side note: on thing to consider when looking at polishing a light with some nicks is the current finish. If the light has a machined finish versus a polished or bead-blasted on already you will risk removing the machining marks and ridges when you polish with abrasives. While this may be okay for some situations there may be others, like the McGizmo lights or a Spy versus the clips themselves. Lights like a V10R Ti/Ti+ or the Jetbeam Ti lights are already polished to this would be a good application for them.

I use some 3M fast cut plus 50417, and a rag or dremel. Effective for making stuff shiny.

thanks for posting this! would you recommend it on those super shiny 4Sevens polished Ti lights?

I checked out that 3M fast cut and from what I can see it would be great for making shiny stuff even shinier.

I don't see why it wouldn't work on the Quarks but YMMV and I would say to try it on something that you don't mind practicing on. Maybe some metal polish after would really get the shine going.

I am realizing that I had the light bouncing off the clips in the wrong direction so you don't really get a good view of the real shine on the clip. I'll try to take a follow-up picture this weekend that shows it better.

We use the 3M at work. The fast cut is heavy duty used by proffesionals. There are lots if different grits, but the fast cut gives really great results in no time. Have not tested the finer grits on ti. But it should give even nicer results. Have used it on the old ti preon1, and got it back to crome like shape. Also used it to polish the bed blasted preon p0 to mirror like shine in under a minute. ( i put it in a eletric drill and spun it in a rag with 3M)

I've got a cheapo Harbor Freight Tools 3" grinder that has a buffing wheel on one side. By itself it does nothing but spray fibers all over the place and not buff anything. Do you think you cut put something like that paste on the buffing wheel and use it to polish?

I wouldent put it on the wheel, would be a mess when you start spinning it. Throwing the nasty stuff in your face and everywhere.
Put on the item you want shiny and it might be a nice tool for polishing stuff.

So maybe apply it and polish with a cloth and then use the buffer to bring it to a shine?

Yep. I also add a drop of water now and then to keep things cool when using a fast spinning tool. Use eye protection.

ShineOnYouCrazyDiamond said:

I've got a cheapo Harbor Freight Tools 3" grinder that has a buffing wheel on one side. By itself it does nothing but spray fibers all over the place and not buff anything. Do you think you cut put something like that paste on the buffing wheel and use it to polish?

Click to expand...

When I was a kid, we had a buffing wheel. We also had some kind of hard wax type compound that we would apply to the wheel, imagine a 6 inch long crayon, that was 1 inch square.

I also imagine that buffing wheels can be purchased of different qualities.

I was doing some research on this hoping to find the best way to polish my Ti and came across this video. This guy from Silvera Jewelry School teaches the different tools an techniques used to polish jewelry using a power tool. I think it would also apply to our flashaholic needs.

He shows 2 kinds of wheels that I was not aware of: silicone polishing wheel and 3M radial wheel. Very interesting stuff. And they don't need any compound whatsoever!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iZn_jv4dNs

I've bought the wheels and will do some testing when I get them.

Check it out!

I spotted this thread and ordered the 3m polishing set. I found that it took about 15 minutes to get to a polished level matching that of my new AA 119 Mule. Used small squares of the 30, 15, and 9 micron pads where it matched up nicely. No need to go finer.

That looks really nice. Good job.