Seeking P4 Stainless Buttons

[abem]

Hi.

A while back, I snagged a couple of P4 cases from Pulsar Tom's estate and thought that I'd make myself a mirror finish chrome P4. Only problem is that they came without buttons, so I'm looking for:
1) a set of P4 stainless buttons with button covers.
2) Also, it would be nice, thought not strictly necessary, to have a polished chrome bracelet to match, so if anyone has a P4 bracelet, either solid link or hollow link, then I'd be interested in that as well.

I'm open to offers of sales or trades (or donations). I have a couple of items that I can offer for trade:
- a minty P4 classic case with buttons but no glass or case back
- a beat up gold filled P4 case
- a beat up Hamilton QED case front
- a nice Bulova gold block case and bracelet
- two minty Fairchild LCD Tritium backlit watches

-abe.

P4 Brushed vs. Polished:

[LEDluvr]

Wow - nice polishing job there Abe!
It looks like the chrome on a new Harley..... so bright I gotta wear shades.

How did you polish it? What tools did you use, did you use jewlers rouge or automotive/motorcycle polish?

[abem]

LEDLuvr,

Thanks! Stainless steel is surprisingly hard! Where gold fill takes just a few swipes of a polishing cloth, stainless requires an extended amount of elbow grease. Unfortunately, because every surface of the P4 is curved, I recommend doing all of the polishing by hand. I tried using a Dremel on part of the lugs, but felt that it was too imprecise and there's too great a risk of damaging the surface.

1) I started with a little bit of 2000 grit emory paper to remove the coarse initial brushing - afterwards the case looks evenly and finely brushed.

2) I moved on to a set of polishing paper. The polishing papers are graded as follows:
Gray: 600 grit
Blue: 1200 grit
Pink: 4000 grit
Aqua: 6000 grit
Light Green: 8000 grit

I spent a couple of hours with the blue followed by a few more with the pink. After polishing with the pink 4000 grit polishing paper, the surface has an interesting appearance, having a very fine milky anisotropic reflection like a star sapphire or a tiger's eye gemstone. The surface texture modulates the light but is too fine to see with the unaided eye. I was tempted to keep the surface like this although over time the microscope brushing would probably wear away.

3) Final Polishing - Sunshine Cloth
Another hour or two of rubbing with the Sunshine cloth removes the last surface texture leaving a perfect mirror finish. I've used a couple of other types of polishing cloths but in my experience, nothing works like Sunshine polishing cloth - magical stuff.

I think the P4 looks nice polished (blasphemy). The brushed is more stylish, but the polished has a cool space age feel. The convex bezel reflects the environment like a gazing ball (If you look, you can see me reflected in the bezel). The bezel is subtly curved in every direction where at first glance it looks only curved in the horizontal direction. Since Pulsar only offered the exec in two styles (and I have one of each), I feel compelled to add a third.

-abe.

[retroleds]

I tried using a Dremel on part of the lugs, but felt that it was too imprecise and there's too great a risk of damaging the surface.
-abe.

Abe, I was a little confused on why you went from 2000 grit down to 1200(courser) - generally the idea is to go always finer, since the finer grit works slower, it takes more work to obliterate the deeper marks left by the courser grit.

I'd agree the Dremel is the wrong tool(really bad for crystal polishing) - mainly because it has such a small point of contact, you'd go insane trying to blend things. A large wheel on a bench polisher/grinder is TERRIBLY DANGEROUS,due to the great surface speed*. Tried and true item used by many jewelers and artists is a cotton "mushroom" buff of 1.5-2" in diameter, any length you can find - white jewelers rouge is the one for stainless,chrome or hardened tool steel. Red rouge which works great on gold and brass will just leave harder materials murky. A cone shaped buff is the ultimate, as it allows you to pick where along the body of the buff you want to work - but they are costly. A mushroom buff is easy to find.

*6" buff on bench unit(3600 rpm) has a surface speed of 94.41 feet per second(28.78 meter/second). A little over 64 miles per hour(102km). I was a form grinder for 12 years...spent a lot of time pondering wheel surface speeds vs. material removal rates, heat buildup,etc.

The mushroom buff is also a lot less likely to rip the work from your hand due to the smaller circle. Which makes it easier for one to commit themselves to the idea of not letting the piece go vs. having their fingers ripped off. Just my $0.02

Your finished product look fantastic.

[abem]

Ed,

Yes, that is a little confusing. Even though the blue polishing paper supposedly has a grit number of 1200 compared to the 2000 grit sandpaper, it seems to be finer. Perhaps the abrasive is different? Perhaps there is some difference between manufacturers?

At the time, I was going mainly by feel. The polishing papers that I have don't have a grit number on the back so it wasn't until I posted this that I knew the grit number corresponding to the colors of the various polishing papers. Perhaps I should have swapped the order of the 2000 grit and the blue polishing paper? Hard to say.

-abe.

p.s. Thanks for the advice on the different colors of jeweler's rouge. As I novice, I found this all a bit confusing - white, green, red, black etc. Is the difference entirely due to particle size or is there more going on?