stainless steel cleaning

[iron ant]

Okay, my polish and techniques are dated, so let it fly. What do you guys,and gals, use to clean your large stainless exterior works. With acid rain, hand prints, bird crap,ect it is a challenge. Enviromently friendy prefered...IA

[Owen Weng]

Typically polishing takes three steps:
- preliminary polishing: using hard stone polishing wheel to remove any bumps on the surface

- middle polishing: paste a few white polishing wax on stainless steel and use nonwoven polishing wheel to make the surface of stainless steel smooth

- refining polishing: using wool polishing wheel and green wax to make the stainless steel looks mirror like.

I do not think acid is required to clean the stainless steel.

[EJB]

If you are talking about maintenance type cleaning, that should be a snap with just dish soap and water. For big pieces you can use can use a pressure washer. Great thing about stainless is that it holds up well outside and is impervious to most conditions. For heavier cleaning of surface materials like dirt, bird droppings, hand prints, etc. , I use a simple powdered cleanser like Zud or Bartender's Friend. There are a number of different brands made for stainless cleaning and vary from non-scratching to slightly abrasive. Key ingredient for these is oxalic acid which is in very low concentration and not particularly dangerous. Some folks swear by Sheila Shine but it does have a lot of unsavory chemicals including xylene and perchloroethylene. Not even sure how they are able to sell it at hardware stores and kitchen supply places. Sheils Shine and its not so toxic relatives like Kitchen Magic and other spray cleaners usually have some combination of oils and paraffins which do more to put a sheen on the surface as opposed to removing unwanted surface materials. They will often lead to visible streaking on flat surfaces. If it does not affect the appearance of your piece, oil or wax residues can help keep things form sticking to it between cleanings but if the finish is not dry it will hold dust and dirt. I will sometimes wipe down with WD-40 followed by a wipe down with a clean dry cloth.

[Ryder]

On the same thought as maintenance cleaning, does anyone charge for this service or is it included in the purchase price? I have a few high visibility pieces close by that I take care of gratis since they are great advertising but if the sculpture is farther away it gets expensive on my part.