can you post a scene file?
I've taken a look and tried a few different things, with my limited uv unwrapping knowledge, but haven't been able to get around it with anisotropy enabled - would be worth posting in the bug tracker if anyone else can confirm it?I do a few stainless steel product shots myself but have been lucky enough to avoid this problem as the products I've worked on haven't had stainless steel bases or tops to them. Have you tried going through the anisotropy video posted late last year?
You don't need "brushed metl" or any else texture in glossiness channel for anisotropy to work, but spiral gradient texmap for anisotropy rotation is a must. There is no other way around. Luckily it's very easy to map such objects for anisotropy - it's just basic planar mapping.
Single material should cover it - it's just a matter of anisotropy rotation map. I may give you some example later.Edit: here's video to better visualise how rotation map should look like. Colours for cylinder side might be 0,0,0 64,64,64 128,128,128 or 256,256,256 depending of orientation of your object or UVs.
Hmm, that central part of a base really looks like a bug. I don't keep track on C4D bugs, so i don't know if it's reported already. Hopefully, someone who do know, will look into this topic and will tell you more about it.