Question regarding buffing

Hi Kevin I never use any paint on my bowls, shellac or other, but yes you can buff any finish, you can/should use what you need (red or white polish) and a good cured finish should be easily buffed out, if it's rough you might need to re-sand with 800 or 1000 grit and then buff, just watch out that you don't go through the finish, very easily done especially on edges. If your wheels are still new, you might need a bit more wax on them, but you need very little, get your speed high enough also, if you get to much on you can clean your wheel and remove some again with your final polishing wheel. Just try it, it's not rocket science. Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

Kevin.. For an experiment on proper amount of wax, buff something non-critical and load up the wax wheel.... You know that you're gone "too far" when with moderate pressure, you're seeing wax lines... as on a pen when you rotate it around, you'll see a line of wax along the pen body.. That's a bad thing because it will gum up and not give you a good shine or feel..

Experiment with different amounts of was and different pressure/movement combinations and you'll love the effect..

IMHO, buffing is a new tool and should be treated as one... you try a tool, play with it on scrap, etc., until you're familiar and comfortable with it...YMWV

mac

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I'm not Leo, but the Beall folks recommend a min. of 1 hp and 1,700 RPM, I think... When I was buffing on my Jet Mini, I found 1,800 the best choice.. on the Jet

1442 it's 1,900... not sure what the speed choices are on the 1235 but probably in that range.. You need one of 2 things for the friction: speed or pressure.. I prefer speed.. I do my buffing on an old washing machine motor now.. 1/2 hp and 1,750 rpm.. I find that a bit slow for small stuff like pens, but fine for bowls and such..

mac

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If you are using old buffs that have shrunk (worn, really), or the goblet buffs that start smaller, you want more RPMs - you are basically shooting for a more-or-less fixed surface feet per minute of the buff on the wood, which varies with diameter and RPM.

It's a good job for the old Shopsmith, if you have an old Shopsmith hanging around.

Beall suggests 1/3 hp or greater 1725 for the 8" buffs, and 3000 rpm for the 4" buffs.

Hi Kevin Well you got the answers already, I buff either with the workpiece in the lathe and my 6" wheels in a high speed drill (2900 rpm) or with my

10" wheels on a 1725 rpm electric motor, if I use my worn 6" wheels on the 1725 rpm motor it just doesn't work well, yes you need more speed than 500 that's for sure, but you can go too fast also, very high speed makes the wheel hard for the centrifugal force, and then you can get the finish to hot and buff/burn through a finish pretty fast Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

I have a Shopsmith but it's too friggin' loud at buffing speed to use more than once..

mac

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Earmuffs. Actually, I'm re-engineering a second 1953-4 Mark-V (not messing with grandpa's yet, but it's one of the same vintage) to use a VS motor, rather than the Reeves drive. Had to kludge that on grandpa's when I lost a bearing on the Reeves control pulley-half in the middle of some work - while awaiting parts, I slapped a VS motor on the bed driving the jointer shaft, and that drove the spindle. It was so wonderfully quiet (no Reeves squeal) that I'm moving to making it a permanent modification (with the motor more in the proper location) on the second one (which was cheap, and already had been messed with when I got it). If I get it right I have no major qualms about redoing grandpa's, he was also an engineer, and would be fine with making it better, so long as it's not frigging it up...

It also solves the "no speed below 700 RPM" problem without that hokey speed reducer.

My ol' Mark 5 has been being used and abused since I bought it in 81... It's pretty much a dedicated horizontal drill press with sanding disk on the other end, now... and gets the heavy routing jobs now and then..

Thank whoever that I'm not turning on that sucker anymore.. lol

In over 25 years of abuse I've changed he speed control arm one and a belt once... they're pretty damn durable..

mac

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