Discovered a dead easy way to give aluminum kind of a pleasing surface finish rather than the usual blah stock finish or typical machining & scribe lines etc. My digital cameras pics dont seem to reproduce metal that great but these give the general idea. It looks a bit better in real life.
Depending on the alloy & how you traverse the sander it can come out like a mild sandblasty matt finish, or this cool, random marble swirl, almost a 3D effect. It was just 100 grit paper in a standard orbital sander, took all of 3 seconds. I ran out of finer paper but will try that next. I didn't measure removal but guessing maybe 3-5 thou. ie its just for cosmetics, not to improve or alter surface quality, although its probably doing a bit of that on raw stock.
Depending on the alloy & how you traverse the sander it can come out like a mild sandblasty matt finish, or this cool, random marble swirl, almost a 3D effect. It was just 100 grit paper in a standard orbital sander, took all of 3 seconds. I ran out of finer paper but will try that next. I didn't measure removal but guessing maybe 3-5 thou. ie its just for cosmetics, not to improve or alter surface quality, although its probably doing a bit of that on raw stock.
