How To Refinish Stainless Steel Appliances?
Getting trouble with your streaky, scratched, and dull-looking stainless steel products? Don’t worry, I have come up with an easy and cheap DIY solution for you about ‘how to refinish stainless steel appliances?’ at home. DIYers find it challenging because of a lack of knowledge and guideline. They also don’t know about the types of stainless steel by which their equipment is made having a slightly different method of cleaning.
In the case of kitchen appliances, stainless steel is a great choice. Because they are appealing-looking, long-lasting hygienic products, and don’t get damaged easily by continuous heavy use in your kitchen. They are resistant to water and heat damage. Also, it is hard to scratch and leave a stain on them while used.
That’s why the use of stainless steel products is rising tremendously in a wide aspect of human life. People find comfort and satisfaction and feel safe using stainless steel products.
Nowadays in restaurants & kitchens, a wide variety of stainless steel products are highly used for heavy-duty. These products include Cooking devices, Utensils, pots & pans, mixers, sinks, stoves, shelves & containers, pipefittings, cold and hot storage, vending machines, refrigerators, etc.
In this article, I will provide you with the easiest ways of cleaning a streaky and scratched stainless steel product like a kitchen sink, a refrigerator, and other utensils. And also tell you the common mistakes people do while cleaning.
Stainless Steel:
Stainless steels are alloys of mostly Iron and Chromium (10 to 12%) containing very low carbon (<1.2%). They are corrosion-resistant hybrid metals and this feature can be enhanced by alloying other metals like Nickel, Titanium, etc.
2 Best DIY Methods for refinishing stainless steel at home:
After long-term use of stainless steel appliances, they start to lose resistance to heat and grain damage. Then it becomes a challenge to keep them clean and reflects fingerprints combined with the streaky condition make them disgusting looking. It is very important to keep in mind the direction of the grain on a stainless steel surface while cleaning it.If you can’t find the grain direction then start cleaning with a small area just as a little practice.
Tools and products needed:
- Microfiber cloth/paper towels
- Sandpaper/Blue Scotch-Brite
- Sanding block/abrasive pad
- Olive oil
- White Vinegar
- Filtered water/distilled water
- Spray bottles
Method 1: Cleaning Streaks, Residues and Other Marks
To clean stainless-steel kitchen appliances such as cooking wares, utensils, pots & pans, kitchen knives, etc. you will need a simple vinegar and olive oil combination.
- First, make a 1:1 white vinegar and water solution which means you have to mix 1L vinegar with 1L water and then pour it into a spraying bottle.
- Spray this solution over the surface of all your stainless steel surfaces and wait 2 or 3 minutes. Vinegar solution is really effective in removing oily and fatty residues from steel surfaces.
- Then rinse them in filtered water for wet cleaning. Wipe up the appliances with a microfiber cloth which will dry them up. Or, you can use paper towels also.
- After that, drop some olive oil on the surface of the appliances or you can dip that microfiber cloth in olive oil and apply it as a shiner.
- While rubbing the surfaces with this oil-dipped microfiber cloth you must move the cloth to the grain direction. Using olive oil will shine your steel products and make them streaks or other marks-free.
With this simple method, you can clean your daily used stainless steel appliances but you cannot refinish a bad scratch from the surfaces. So, what to do? Don’t panic, just follow Method 2.
Method 2: Refinishing Scratches From Stainless Steel Appliances
A refrigerator with stainless steel brushed finish is really nice looking but it reflects fingerprints which lessen its aesthetic view. It becomes worse when there are scratches and oily residues on the surface of the fridge. But you can easily refinish the surface by following these two simple steps-
Step-1: clean up the surface residues
Like Method 1 you have to clean the oily streaks and other residues from the refrigerator surface first. For this, you can use the same vinegar solution or go for an alternative stainless steel cleansing product. But I recommend home supplies like vinegar. After cleaning and wiping with paper towels to dry up the surface do not use olive oil or another shiner for shining. Because you’re now up to refinish the scratch in step-2.
Step-2: Removing The Scratch
Scratches can be minor or deep on the steel surface. Minor scratches can be easily removed but deep scratches isn’t easy to refinish. But it’s not impossible if you take your time and follow the right ways. Otherwise you may make the problem worse and leave a permanent stain on the fridge. To remove scratches people mostly use different kinds of sandpapers depending on the scratch type. For best results, you should use sandpaper on a sanding block.
Common mistakes people do while cleaning stainless steel appliances:
- Do not use bleach or a cleaner that contains chlorine
- Never use any rough and scrubby Scotch-Brite sponge for polishing your stainless steel appliances
- Don’t use regular scouring powders on your steel surface that are used for rubbing and shining your household equipment.
- Ammonia-containing glass cleaners must be avoided
- Also don’t use an oven cleaner to refinish your stainless steel appliances.
- Avoid hard tape water and use clean filtered water
- Never use fine steel wool because it comes with detergent and bleach preloaded.
