Tony's Jaguar V-12 Project

Polished stainless steel bolts

(click on any picture to enlarge, hit "back" to return to this page)

The dremel and a flat file were first used to remove the raised lettering.
The rest of the process was as I described on the previous page. Seven grades of sanding, per side, per bolt. Each finer grit done at right angles to the courser grit, making sure all previous lines were completely gone. That's 49 sanding steps per bolt, then on to the buffer wheel. When finished, the tops were perfect mirrors.
When I was first trying to get this shot, I kept getting frustrated because the bolt heads always looked blurry in the pic preview. Then I zoomed in and realized I had perfect little reflections of the bare tree limbs above me. I laughed, moved to the other side of the bolts, and took the picture.
Here are the old rusted bolts next to my polished stainless bolts.
Old steel, raw stainless, polished stainless.
The new stainless bolts were a bit longer than the originals. It probably wouldn't have mattered, but I went ahead and trimmed them and then fixed the threads.
Speaking of reflections, check this out.
Okay, here's where this goes over the top. Feel free to laugh at me. You really have to click twice on the picture to go expanded full size and get the full effect. Reflection within reflection within refection within reflection within reflection...
I could pretend people will look at this and say, "Good heavens, that is the most astonishing example of skilled polishing combined with phenominal photography that I have ever seen!" However, I realize it is far more likely they are thinking, "Dude, have you EVER had a date?!?