The polishing of stainless steel sculpture presents by different surface effects, usually in the following ways.
A. Brushed: the surface effect of 180# sand wheel is rough brushed surface mainly.
B. Matte: the surface effect of 320# fiber wheel is as finer brushed surface mainly.
C. Common polishing: the effect of 320# polishing can reflect the light but blurred the reflective surface.
D. Mirror polishing: the effect of 600# polishing and above are for mirror effect, showing a very clear mirror surface.
At present, there is no written rules to quantify its standard for the polishing of stainless steel sculptures, but the final surface effect is a good reaction to a variety of qualities, especially the effect of the mirror treatment. Please see the comparison between the following two different standards of mirror polishing treatment.
The surface of Fig. 1 is like a mirror, clearly reflecting the effect of the scene, with little distortion. You can also refer to the Bean sculptures by artist Kapoor.
On the contrary, the surface reflection effect of Fig. 2 is not so good, the partial reflection is dark; the surface reflection object is obviously deformed; the straight line is not straight with serious distortion.
So generally, we judge the polishing standard based on whether the surface is smooth with uniform reflection; whether the reflective object is clear and visible; whether the reflective object is deformed.
The surface smoothness of forging stainless steel mainly shows that the smoother the surface is, the more uniform the reflected light is, rather than dark light on the partial low-lying surface.
Second, the special treatment of welding line. Welding line is the jointing of the two panels. It is highly required for the smoothness. If the welding line is not handled well, the piece will seem to be a divided mirror. A straight line or a reflected object will be dismantled into two parts.
