Buffing Discussion

[Dan Mosley]

Like many people I have the standard setup of Tripoli, White diamond and Carnuba for buffing. Although I do not use the Carnuba anymore really and use Renissance, Briwax (which has Carnuba in it), EEE or something else. I have dedicated wheels for all buffing materials made out of loose cotton or spiral stitched.

On Danish/Waterlox or oil finishes I will sand to 1000 or up to 2000, wet sanding and cleaning well with mineral spirits as I go. I then let dry for a day or so before i go to the buffing. Then choose which one of both of the compounds or put EEE (cutting wax) on the wheel and buff it. At this point depending on the project either I put Renissance or a paste wax on by hand rubbing it in circles and buff it off by hand or with a clean wheel. The other way is to put a smear of paste wax on the project and use the buffing wheel to buff it in well, then hand buff one and call it done.

Lacquer Finish - I use EM6000 waterbourne now. After putting on however many coats of lacquer I decide, I put it to cure for a week or more.
Then, sand the surface with 400-600 and go up to 1000-2000 depending. I use water with a few drops of dish soap to lubricate - cleaning well as I go. Then 3m rubbing compound by hand, wax or Meguiars swirl remover and call it done.

Recently I bought some scotchbrite material (maroon,grey and gold) and a some Mezerna compound (medium and fine) bars from Wood Esscence.
The scotchbrite works very well on the surfaces for removing sags and marks etc. I ran into some problems using the Menzerna compounds though as it seems to mark easy (like a sanding scratch) in some places no matter how light of a touch I have on the buffing wheel which runs at 1750rpms. I called the vendor the other day and we discussed using the bars on the wheels like they do with guitars. One suggestion was to use flannel wheels for the application instead or loose cotton. The loose cotton wheels are most likely what is causing the making.

Thought I would see how others are doing their buffing of both types of finishes

 

[KellyDunn]

Dan, mostly I am doing a poly finish not built up but in the pores mostly. I do a lot of buffing but I dont change wheels to change compounds. I hold a stick agaist the spinning wheel to clean off most of the stuff. I stop sanding at 320 and do mostly brown tripoli. I do have a dedicated wax wheel. Even though I hand apply ren wax a buff with a wheel really shines it up. I use a spray lacquer on bottle stoppers and give them an ever so light buff and wax. I dont want to go through the finish.
For folks like yourself that go to high grits your way I am sure works fine for you. I cant see going beyond 320 on a utilitarian work. If not used it still looks great. Yes you can see sanding lines. I hand sand the final forward and reverse and get the lines all even. The even lines make the difference. 320 all swirled really stands out to me. Even and the minds eye is OK. What I do gags instrument makers.

 

[Ed Koenig]

Dan, I'm of the same ways as Kelly. I rarely sand anything beyond 400 and do a lot of hand sanding. I don't like sanding on the lathe with the wood spinning sanding against the grain. That's good for the lower grits as far as I'm concerned but I always finish up by hand sanding with the grain.

I finish most of my work with home brewed oil and buff with tripoli and/or white diamond and wax. Which wax depends on my mood. I like carnauba wax because it is a hard wax ands offer good protection.

When I use lacquer, I buff very gently with loose cotton and no compounds. I suspect you're getting too aggressive which is melting the lacquer and causing the marks.

 

[john lucas]

I do things a little differently than many. When I first got my Beal buffing system with the 8" wheels I burned through the lacquer on a couple of pieces and really caused myself some headaches. The 8" wheels were too large so I changed to 4" wheels. Since I had a lathe with variable speed I slowed the lathe down a lot. That worked for me.
What I do now is to use the 4" wheels and they run about 1500 to 2000 rpm. I sand to 400 most of the time 600 many times. I stop the lathe and sand with the grain by hand on most pieces once I get to 220 or 320. This way I can really concentrate on sanding lines from courser grits. I did a test one day and found that people could not see the difference in my pieces when sanded above 600. I buff with the tripoli until the finish looks dull. I use very little tripoli on the wheel. It only takes enough to dull the finish and get rid of any lines or orange peel left from the spray lacquer.
If it's a porous white wood and I'm using a thin finish I skip the tripoli. That's when I will definitely sand to 600 and sometimes 1200. If I'm using a thick bodied finish such as lacquer will use the white diamond after the tripoli. If I'm finishing dark woods like walnut I may skip the white diamond depending on how much the finish fills the pores. It sucks to get the white diamond paste in your dark wood pores.
On smaller work I use the Beal buffing wheel with the Carnauba wax. On larger work I will often hand apply Johnson's paste wax. Sometimes I'll buff it under power and other times I'll just do it by hand.

 

[Dave W]

Dan,

I recently got into the lacquer thing my self. I'm currently shooting Sherwin CAB-Acrylic on my pieces. I'll put 9 - 12 coasts, partially leveling out every 3 coats with 400 grit. After the last coat I level complete with 400 grit then proceed as you do up to 2000.

For buffing I use only the Mezerna medium and fine. I'm about to purchase a buffing arbor to set up a separate station for this. The beal system is good for some stuff, but when it comes to the mezerna it tends to burn through. For the last few months I've had the fortune to use my guitar building buddies buffer. He has 2 of these canton weave wheels on both sides of his buffer (http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/S...uffing_Wheels.html?actn=100101&xst=3&xsr=1743). I really like the extra thickness it offers. Having done several pieces on his set up, I can tell you the results I achieve never cease to amaze me. No visible scratch marks like you described. I've thought about just getting the wheels and adapting them to work with the beal, but I find the space around the stationary buffer a big plus when doing larger bowls or hollow forms.

Since this would be useless with out a pic...

 

[Dan Mosley]

John - Ed -Kelly - thanks for the input and ill try some of your ideas in the future on utility type projects. I have several high end projects in different stages of finishing and a friend told me about using the Mezerna the way guitar builders do. The results are impressive but the process is longer I understand.

Dave - Yes that is exactly what I am trying to do for the higher end turnings I do. Below is one that I did 2' 4" tall - Lacquer 10 coats - sanded to 2000 and buffed but not with the Menzerna. I think ill get a couple of the 12" canton buffs you mentioned and put them on my buffer. Hopefully that will cure my recent problem....................Thanks