Pypes tips polishing help needed
 

I just purchased Pypes EVT58 long tips. The picture on the Pypes website looks like shiny chrome however they come finished in stainless steel that has only been somewhat polished and light sanding marks cover them. They are nowhere near as smooth and shiny as shown. I was told I can polish them to look like chrome however after some time on the buffing wheel with some white jewelers rouge they got shinier but the sanding lines remain.

Has anybody successfully made the metal flawless and polished these to pass for chrome? What process, steps and compounds did you use to get them that way?

Thanks in advance for your help

good luck

Stainless is a $@*% to polish.

the thing is to plan ahead in how you handle the stainless to limit blemishes that will eventually need to be polished out. You dont have that option.

Stainless work hardens very quickly. best deal is to polish/grind out the scratches with something more agressive than rouge. then go with various grades of rouge. but rouge alon will not remove gouges and sanding grinding marks

think of it this way. People get paid alot to polish stainless, you will find out why when you do it. Lots of money in it though.

wear a resporator and eye protection

I understand the theory of moving from a more agressive medium to a lighter one. I was hoping for specifics on which exact grade to start with and as you wrote if rouge alone won't get out these sanding marks then what will?

I need to buy these items so I was hoping someone that also purchased these tips and saw exactly the kind of scratches they had could tell me what to start with to get the metal smooth and to a chrome polished state.

I shouldn't have to be doing this in the first place if the tips came as advertised

Thanks for your reply.

It depryends what you are starting with, but if its nice and smooth, then start with 400 or 600, go up to 1000, then 1200. At that point you can get on the buffer with some white rouge. It'll look great at that point, but if you are going for super show finish, you can hit it on a loose wheel with some green rouge.

Make sure and keep the sandpaper nice and wet. It will prevent making a mark in it from a dry paper rub. It really is not to hard. Just let the paper do the work. Dont try to sand out a bad scratch with 1000 grit or you will work yourself to death.

Thank you, that gives me a range to start with. I uploaded a closeup pic I took with my phone to try and show some detail that I am talking about. This is how the tips were delivered to me. If I run my nail over the scratches it doesn't catch but are felt. I will try your wetsanding advice with the finer grits you mentioned first before moving back to the rouges.

Hard to say from the picture but I believe I'd start with the 400 on that. You can go up in grits pretty fast, but if you start to fine you'll never get done. you can test on the top and fully polish a section out before doing the whole thing. Just to get your system down.

Also, sand across the scratches. Start out sanding longways across the scratches that are already in it. Then on the next grit sand crossways so you are always sand out the scratches you just put in it with the previous grit. Seems to make it go a little faster and come out better.

Also, try and sand across the scratches. If you go long ways the first go, then sand crossways. That way you will continue to sand out the scratches you just put in it with the next grits.

I polished my complete Pypes Street Pro system with the splitter tips using a cheap buffer motor and pad and some polish made for stainless. The tips especially came out nice. Even my stainless steel band clamps look like chrome. :)

Well Gearbanger your eyes are pretty good because I started a test area with 400 grit and that took out about 90% of the marks. There's just tiny dot marks left. I will try 1 step more aggressive in grit maybe 320? to expedite the process. To do the whole tip I can see this will cost me a good amount of my time. Anyway After a few minutes with the 400 I tried some emery buffing compound on my bench buffer and it was close to smooth, unmarred, chrome.

If Pypes would have sent them looking like this, at this stage I would have just bolted them on the car. I'll post another update when I try the other grit(s) so someone in the future that wants their pypes tips to pass for shiny chrome will know the exact process and save them some time.

Thanks Again

Final thoughts
 

My pics of the first test area are around the upper collar area. I figured it would be a safe spot in case I goofed. Turns out that area polishes up faster and better than the rest of the tip. It must have something to do with the die stamp process to create the bend and then the collar. The straight tube going towards the bevel tip has much deeper scratches. I figure pypes wire wheels these tips to a satin finish because to really polish them costs them more money and does not maximize their profit.

After about 10 minutes of hand sanding with 220 grit I started to lose the will to live. Very little progress and Pontirag's post about how tough this was is ringing true. Time to get creative. Out comes my palm sander and keeping the paper sprayed down with water it was going much better. Just plant the sander on the pipe and rotate the pipe 90 degrees one way and back the other, back and forth about 30 times and the work was done in a 4" patch. Since it was going quicker with the palm sander I went 220,320,400,1200 then emery rouge then green rouge. About 2 hours of casual work.

The tip is highly mirror reflective and on the car it looks like chrome. Crouch down within 2 feet and you see slightly scratched chrome. You probably need to start at 100 or 150 grit to really get out those deep factory scratches.

Glutton for punishment
 

I came this far and I really wanted to see what grit takes out those scratches. It's 80 and even then you'll still have a dozen or so small marks. I redid the whole process starting at 80 and leaning on the palm sander to take them out then working my way back up to shiny.

Good grief.

Thanks for taking the time to post this info. I plan on going this route at some point also, it's good to know what I'm getting into.

I Appreciate that. Good to know someone can use this info. I'm glad I could give something back to the forum and community that has helped me too.