Review: Flitz Büff Ball & Flitz Metal Polish

Polishing metal...Who knows? Not me. I don’t know anything about it...I found some solid antique copper bowls with “patina” - & as a little project tried to make them shiny.

Flitz seems to be legit for polishing uncoated metal on cars. So I did a little research & it seems there products are generally considered legit for polishing any metal...

The Flitz Büff Ball & Metal Polish:

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The Büff Ball basically attaches to a drill chuck & you go to town with the polish. I recommend using a corded drill here - cuz this takes some time & you want as much RPMs as possible...

Bowl #1 (initial):

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I really had no idea what I was doing here. This bowl had severe oxidation. My initial approach was to attack it by hand with P21S Polishing Soap & a scouring pad.. This worked - but was sort of a mis-step.

The reason being was the scouring pad got most of the funk off - but left some fine scratches the Metal Polish & Büff Ball couldn’t remove. I could have hit it with some fine grit sand papers - but was fairly happy with the result...

After Büff Ball And Metal Polish (and about 2 hours of work):

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Bowl #2 (initial):

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So, this bowl was more tarnished - but had less oxidation. This bowl was also “hammered copper” which means it has dimples/valleys in the metal. So, Polishing was more work do to this...

Anyway, I decided to clean it initially with the P21S Polishing Soap & the Scrub Daddy pad that comes with it - to avoid scratches from the scouring pad. It worked. So, after about 2 hours of polishing - I was able to get somewhat close to a mirror finish:

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So, what I learned from this little project is this combo on a drill is pretty legit. I’m sure a bench grinder with a cotton buff would be faster - but most people don’t have that & you can get this kit for like $30.

What I learned from this:

1. It takes a long time to do this. Prolly would go faster with initial fine sanding if the metal is in this poor shape.

2. Don’t even think of trying this by hand. Was enough work with a machine.

3. The Büff Ball gets “gummed up” with junk just like a wool pad & looses its effectiveness...So, I cleaned it with a pad brush just like you would with a MF pad. Also, changing the drills rotational direction seemed to help.

Undiscovered priceless antiques with a million dollar patina. ;)

Swanicyouth- Ah, good review!

I`m familiar with the Flitz polish and intrigued by the P21s Polishing Soap. How do the two products compare in your opinion?

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Originally Posted by Accumulator

Swanicyouth- Ah, good review!

I`m familiar with the Flitz polish and intrigued by the P21s Polishing Soap. How do the two products compare in your opinion?

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The Polishing Soap is good at removing gunk & grime - but not really a polish. The Flitz Metal Polish is way more aggressive...

I’ve also used the Flitz Metal Polish & P21S Total Surface Restorer Polish interchangeably. They are different for sure - but both seems about equally as aggressive.

Whoa. I like the results. Thanks for the post

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Originally Posted by Swanicyouth

The Polishing Soap is good at removing gunk & grime - but not really a polish. The Flitz Metal Polish is way more aggressive...

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Ah, thanks for the info...I have more thinking to do..

I admit I have never polished out copper, but I have polished out some old forged aluminum factory wheels (Chrysler/Mopar). The process for doing those was to first use an abrasive blaster with crushed glass (soda was not an option, as it won`t do anything to the epoxy paint that the wheels were painted with). After that, I used 400 grit, then 600 grit, and then 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper. That got some shine to the metal, but it was pretty hazed up. I then used Flits Pre Cleaner, which is a chemical cleaner, and wanted to use it to chemically clean the surface before using the Buff Ball/Flitz Metal polish as you did. End result was a mirror like shine (I am told that forged wheels shine up better than cast wheels).

Point of all of that was to suggest that before you do this again, it may be worth a try to try the Pre Cleaner before you start to sand or sue steel wool. It seems to do a great job of cleaning off contaminants, and possibly, of some benefit in reducing corrosion. If it does work, you will have a lot fewer scratches to deal with when you use the Buff Ball/Flitz Metal polish.

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Originally Posted by kkritsilas

.. it may be worth a try to try the Pre Cleaner before you start to ..[do aggressive stuff]...

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Ah, interesting, thanks for posting that.

This was very interesting, Thanks for sharing!