OT - polishing cloisonne/enamel

Digger1 · Post by **Digger1** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 4:43 pm

I have a Zippo that's the nice candy apple red but after being in my pocket for a few days, it has some very minor scratches and blemishes on it. I tried using one of those ultra-fine nail polishing sticks but it hazed it. I also tried toothpaste. Nada.

Anyway, I bought some automotive finish polishing compound and that seemed to work nicely for the parts that I didn't try the abrasive (nail file, toothpaste) stuff on so I'm hoping some of that crazy cool Novus polish would work.

Just wondering if anyone had any suggestions for polishing enamel.

Digger1 · Post by **Digger1** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 3:25 pm

anyone? Anyone at all...?

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 3:44 pm

Not really. Baked enamel is close to glass as far as harness so you'd need some diamond paste to start the process.

Digger1 · Post by **Digger1** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 5:56 pm

neato. I think diamond paste is a tad too expensive for what I want to do though. It's just for a $20 zippo.

I did try another kind of toothpaste and rubbed it in with the edge of my thumb like how blacksmiths who make and polish nihontō do. I then took some metal polish to it. It's shiny now but still has some deeper scratches in it.