I put together a simple video of how I polish up my metal filament models. While nothing fancy it should help show that you do not need anything fancy to achieve really impressive results. Sorry if the video isn’t super high quality, I plan on re-shooting it in the future with more information.
A few basic tips are as follows:
Wet sanding helps to reduce sandpaper clogging and reduces heat buildup. Although messy it really helps. Just make sure your using waterproof sandpaper…
Use a hard/flat surface. If you have a piece of granite or a sheet of glass use that. The smoother the surface is the easier it is to polish a flat item. This does not apply for non-flat items unless you want the bottom smoothed out.
Always work your way progressively up the sandpaper grits. It takes longer but the results are worth it. Higher grit sandpapers are not intended for removing large quantities of material and will wear out very quickly. Use the low grit sandpaper to clear as much material as possible.
While optional I like to rub my models down with “Nu Finish” liquid polish. This forms a very nice glossy shine and also protects the model against tarnishing… unless you want the model tarnished then skip this step!
Hope that helps some when it comes to polishing up metal models. While it can be a bit time consuming the end result is well worth the effort! When starting out I highly recommend you use a flat model to practice on as well as make a spare so just in case you mess anything up you have not affected the final model!
In the near future I plan on touching on tumbling models and the various medias you can use and some of the advantages and disadvantages to this method over sanding.
