• March 2025 Turning Challenge: Identical Bowls or Plates! (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to Ethan Hoff for "Zigzag Basket Illusion Platter" being selected as Turning of the Week for March 10, 2025 (click here for details)
  • Welcome new registering member. Your username must be your real First and Last name (for example: John Doe). "Screen names" and "handles" are not allowed and your registration will be deleted if you don't use your real name. Also, do not use all caps nor all lower case.

Buffing

D

dbonertz

Joined
Oct 16, 2007
Messages
316
Likes
53
Location
Fort Collins, CO.
Does anyone have a recommended speed for buffing? For the tripoli wheel due you run fast or slow? Same with white and carnuba? I am using a jet mini lathe with the beal system. My slowest speed is 500 rpm and at times that seems to fast. Thanks for any help you can offer.
 
1200 rpm is what I run at. Be mindful that you are buffing not trying to use it like and "abrasive gouge". The wheels should just touch the piece. Also make sure that your finish has cured pretty good. Also, press the piece a bit harder into the wax wheel. With that one you need a little heat to be generated to melt the wax. Finally, the goblets buffs are less like to grab the piece even when speed is adjusted to maintain the same angular velocity. I think it is because of their density.
 
Like the man said, it's not so much the speed as it is the pressure. Straightforward friction equation. Shellac and carnauba are close on flow temps, so I'd recommend a softer preparation with shellac. You can even get in trouble with oil-based resin finishes that aren't fully cured.

Be careful on the coarse compounds, lest you cut through a mechanically bonded top layer and leave a ring. Level your finish with backed sandpaper, then polish with the wheels.
 
I run my buffs on a 1725 rpm motor. That is the speed that Beall recommends for their standard buffing wheels. If I remember correctly, the optimum buffing speed for the small bowl buffs is 3550 rpm.

Buffing is most effective with a high surface speed and a light touch. You are polishing, not cutting.
 
buffing speed

I have the Jet Mini and run all three wheels at 1800rpm; I can get a gallery quality finish everytime. You have to spin the balls at least 2500-3000 to compensate for the smaller diameters.
 
Try using latex or nitrile gloves when buffing. Gives you a spiderman grip. (Not that any of MY bowls have ever become Frisbees...)
 
Do you use anything on your turnings before buffing? I have been putting about 3 coats of Mylands friction polish on them and then sanding it with a 3-m pad. On my last turning, though, I noticed if I looked closely I could see the sanding marks from the 3m pad through the wax. What do you do?
 
JRutten said:
Do you use anything on your turnings before buffing? I have been putting about 3 coats of Mylands friction polish on them and then sanding it with a 3-m pad. On my last turning, though, I noticed if I looked closely I could see the sanding marks from the 3m pad through the wax. What do you do?
Click to expand...

Difference between leveling and smoothing. With the flexible pad you just round the edges of the ridges you left in the friction polish rather than remove them. Difference between grading and dragging a road where you take everything to flat rather than just nipping high spots.

You want a backing on the paper you use to level your finish. Use your 3M pad to make the random scratches that take the gloss off your finish, or to polish your wood.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top