How can I repair stainless steel?

http://steel.keytometals.com/Articles/Art97.htm -for more than you ever wanted to know about stainless steel. Stainless steel can be buffed, and there are various cleaners that appear to remove scratches by filling them with a clear coat substance. There are professional cleaners that charge to clean and repair scratches in steel… I hope that helps or at least indicates that you are not fighting a lost cause.

If the stainless steel panels are grained and not just pure shininess, a fine scotchbrite pad scrubbed in the direction of the grain might work if the scratches aren’t too deep. If it’s just shiny, like a mirror…. might be harder to re-create that shiny finish otherwise, I’d follow @alossforwords above.

What type of finish is on the panels?

Thanks for the answers – it has a matte/grainy finish.

Hmmm. I wouldn’t describe the typical mill finish of stainless steel sheet as grainy. Depending upon what it actually is, you might need to redo the treatment after getting the scratches buffed out, if you take that route.

SSINA on stainless steel finishes

My professional terminology might be getting in the way here: by grainy, I would mean something allowing you to pick out the actual crystal boundaries in the metal (which would imply the material is very coarse-grained by the usual standards). I take it you might mean that there is a dominant direction for the majority of the fine scratches on the surface. If the latter, that would be a sign of a typical mill finish (especially if it’s parallel to the long direction of the sheet).

Yeah, that’s what I mean.. the second one. The typical mill finish.

I think the issue is we were looking for a solution that could be done in place so we don’t have to remove the panels (if that’s even possible).