Backrivet Plate V2

When i went to learn to rivet with Peter Pendergast, he mentioned that my backrivet plate was pretty small. I had a go at his much larger and thicker plate, and setting rivets was a lot easier.

So i headed up to Gill Engineering in Airport West, and for $30 got a large 500 x 200 x 15 steel sheet. It was quite rusted and had a lot of scale. The gents there kindly cut it on the largest bandsaw I've ever seen:

I asked about having the plate ground, but it was going to be over $100 to have it done. So the gents there lent me the largest angle grinder i've ever seen - about a 10" disc. After grinding all the scale off etc, the plate looked like this:

To polish the plate i worked through:

- 100 grit belt sander

- 120 grit flapper disc on the angle grinder

- 180 grit emery paper on the electric sander, but had better results by hand

- 240 grit emery paper by hand (cross hatch)

- 400 grit oxide paper by hand (cross hatch)

- 800 grit oxide paper by hand (cross hatch)

- 1200 grit oxide paper by hand (circles). 

- 3000 grit sanding sponge. 

I might even go get a polishing buff for the angle grinder as this may be useful later! 

The back of the plate was in bare metal, so i decided to test out my paint booth by spraying the back of the plate with some metal etch paint: