Un-polishing polished stainless steel

I recently added an OBX exhaust to my daily driver. The original exhaust was swiss cheese'd with rust, and this replacement was cheap, mandrel-bent, and made of 304 stainless. Sold. Only one problem (other than poor fitment, which I am done trying to fix): the muffler is shiny, and can be seen from the back of the car, and it has a 3" outlet with a stylized tip on it.

This is attracting very unwanted attention from the brotato/flat-biller/"I drive a E36 M3ty Honda with clear taillights and I want to race everything on the road" crowd. So I'm going to hack the ricer tip off and just weld on a standard piece of stainless. The polished part though...

What's the easiest way to un-polish it? Burnishing pad? Wire wheel? Acid wash? Kitten tears?

Sandpaper just don't go to coarse, or if you have a sandblaster maybe that.

Yeah, I was going to say blast it with glass bead. Never done it on stainless, but it makes a nice kind of satin finish on aluminum wheels.

BBQ paint.

Scotch brite pads?

If you sand stainless, I believe you should do an acid wash to keep it from rusting.

I like the BBQ paint option, though. Or just put a vise on your dash with some flowers in it. No one will try to race you then.

Keith wrote: BBQ paint.

That won't flake off? Then it'll look like every Toyota muffler ever

Wet sand the snot out of it with 400 grit wet/dry paper. Don't worry about rust, it might get a little color to it but that's even more stealth.

And yeah I don't think I have ever seen a Toyota muffler that didn't look like it had leprosy.

^Yes^

Scuff it w/ 240 wet or dry, degrease w/ acetone or lacquer thinner, shoot w/ VHT high temp black, let it flash off for a while, then drive the car 'til the muffler is heat soaked. It never flakes off and eventually turns that dark grey dirty header color.

I'd scour it lightly with a copper or brass pad to knock the edge off, then just let it age/dirty up a little.

I use BBQ paint on some of my exhaust parts. I don't know if I've ever tried it on polished stainless, but if I was worried I'd rub it down with a Scotchbrite pad first.

In reply to Keith:

I have used BBQ paint on stainless, works good. I actually had to clean it off the other day to resell it....it was stuck on good

wanna buy my OBX cat back?

then you have one to practice on

the brown scotchbrite pads do a nice job

RossD wrote: If you sand stainless, I believe you should do an acid wash to keep it from rusting. I like the BBQ paint option, though. Or just put a vise on your dash with some flowers in it. No one will try to race you then.

only if you use a piece of sand paper that you had previously used on regular steel.. galvanic corrosion is a neat thing..

Get the scotchbrite pads they use for paint prep from a local auto body supply store. Go with the grain of the metal, should give a nice brushed looking effect.

CarKid1989 wrote: wanna buy my OBX cat back? then you have one to practice on

Not if it fits as well as the exhaust. And by well I mean poorly. And also, I have a 2000, which means I have an AIR system...most aftermarket headers don't have the opening for the tube...and removing the system outright throws a SES light, which will fail me on inspections. And I'm poor and can't afford an aftermarket header. But otherwise, yea totally

Sounds like sanding with 240-400 grit sandpaper or a rough Scotchbrite and then black high-temp paint. Thanks guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&list=PLAC6E291A53837225&v=K7-ne_UM3uc#t=2082s

Probably more precision here than you intended.