I have been experimenting with my Beall Buffs, and experimenting with some hardwoods that I got for Christmas, and some softwood that I salvaged from a demolition house.
The buffs do just a splendid job of letting the shine come up, if the wood is smooth enough. I have been sanding to 400 grit, and then buffing. Softwoods are more subtle than the hardwoods, but oh, my! The caranauba wax is a very hard wax and takes a bit of speed and pressure to get it to fuse into the wood... gotta watch it, and let the project tell you what it likes. One big lesson, though... maybe a layer of shellac under the wax is not such a pretty good idea. Shellac responds to the warmth generated by the buffs and tends to smear. I tried working at a much lower speed and then things worked pretty good, but still gotta watch for smearing. I used the shellac in the first place because the piece I was working on was fairly porous and shellac has always been my friend with sanding and low speed polishing methods. Shellac is not indicated when finishing with a buffing process like the Beall buffs.
I got a few pieces of hardwood from my wife and some more pieces from a close family friend. I finally got around to making up a segmented bowl with several different flavors in it, and then seeing what was in there. Padauk is a nice red/orange color and a little soft, easy to chip on the end grain. Cherry is nearly white with a suggestion of rose color, harder than padauk and does not seem to chip across the end grain. Oak is fairly porous and hard, has a tendency to chip across end grain, and has some interesting light effects in the "rays" in the grain. Walnut is lovely stuff and seems to be about the same hardness under the chisel as oak, harder than cherry, and did not make me cuss. Wenge is very dark brown, very hard and wants very fine cuts to keep from chipping out across the end grain. It will tell you if your edge is not as sharp as it should be. It sure does polish up pretty, though, and worth any extra effort it takes!
I will post some pictures of this bowl on flickr in the next day or so, and will notify you on this thread.
The softwoods harvested from the demo house were some bits of cedar post that had been buried in the clay ground here for the past 100 years, and some pieces of old growth fir from one of the timbers under the house. They had some very nice pleasing color and buffed up to a pleasing soft sheen. Pictures forthcoming on flickr as well.
I think my skills are improving and you folks have been my guide and inspiration. Thanks.
tom koehler