making stainless look old

[wklein]

A friend of mine is having new chainplates lazer cut for his classic yacht. They will be in high polished stainless. Does anyone have any suggestions / experience of making it look more traditional. Bead blasting and pickling spring to mind but open to suggestions.

 

[Poecheng]

Believe bead blasting takes the shine off it and leaves it with the look of galvanised not bad

 

[Hadenough]

Just get them made in mild steel and replace them very 5 years or so :encouragement: What's wrong with stainless? Doesn't have to be polished, if you use 304 it wil look like steel after three months anyway.

 

[Rum Run]

A friend of mine is having new chainplates lazer cut for his classic yacht. They will be in high polished stainless. Does anyone have any suggestions / experience of making it look more traditional. Bead blasting and pickling spring to mind but open to suggestions.

The edges will not be polished as cut so giving the parts to a polisher to finish with the instructions to leave them slightly dull would do it. Or buying a polishing kit off the web and DIYing it.
Maybe mirror polished was not the best place to start from though?

 

[Concerto]

No great expense needed to age them. Just rubbing them over with a fine wet and dry paper used dry will remove the shine and give them a dull finish.

 

[Tranona]

I had my stainless mast cap bead blasted when new over 20 years ago. Still looks good. Rubbing down with wet and dry will probably work on flat plate, but a PITA on complex fabrications like mine.

 

[macd]

Believe bead blasting takes the shine off it and leaves it with the look of galvanised not bad

It does, giving a sort of matt finish on stainless. I did it once (as the parts were too fiddly to to polish). It looked well and stayed cleaner than I imagined it would.

 

[Iliade]

What's not traditional about mirror finished bright chrome plated bronze?

Which is kind of how polished stainless steel looks...

 

[cryan]

Scotchbrite is good for dulling any polish should you be that way inclined. The most "Traditional" look however would be to polish the thing to within an inch of it's life.

 

[macd]

The most "Traditional" look however would be to polish the thing to within an inch of it's life.

Yes, polish like mad until you get down to bright bronze

 

[KellysEye]

>A friend of mine is having new chainplates lazer cut for his classic yacht. They will be in high polished stainless. Does anyone have any suggestions / experience of making it look more traditional. Bead blasting and pickling spring to mind but open to suggestions.

If your friend visits Antigua Classics week he will see the crew of boats with stainless stanchions polishing them. There is no need to make them look old it degrades the look, a lot of the classic boats there have been rebuilt at vast cost and the last thing they want is to look scruffy.