There are a lot of ways to do this method, but I am suggesting the items below if you are going to do it with power. You can find drill buffs and other things of the like, but they may tie up one of your hands and not have the same linear speed. The speed of the buff and the type of wheel used are important to get results quickly.
You can learn to do this method with a buffing bar and a manual lap surface like MDF or wood, too, but I’ll leave that to you if you don’t want to deal with a buffer or are really way into the purist stuff.
The Equipment
- A decent 6″ buffer with shellac or cotton stitch wheels. No sisal or anything hard, and no hard felt. Felt could be used on a slower speed machine, but I see no advantage to it.
- A buffing compound that has some tooth. I will post extraneous information pages showing the comparison of buffing compounds on a hard surface vs. the buff. A 5-micron compound on a buff will probably do work similar to a 1 micron compound on a hard surface. Don’t misled by thinking all X number micron abrasives do the same thing with every method. My favorite by far so far is the 5 micron cut and color compound that McMaster Carr sells, product 4784A2 https://www.mcmaster.com/products/buffing-bars/ . I would avoid Lee Valley and other places for buffing bars – they’re overpriced and not as fine as claimed.
- A junk piece of thin flat steel stock, an old flat file or a cheap dollar store putty knife to run perpendicular to the wheel and any glazing off if the wheel gets a gray continuous sheen.
To clean your buffing wheel, literally just hold the side of said cheap putty knife or whatever you choose to the wheel and push in until the glaze is off of the wheel.
For the buffer, I would recommend the Harbor Freight 6″ buffer or whatever version you can find of it labeled (4 or 5 amps) somewhere cheapest. There is no reward for any of the above going up in price.
I personally don’t care for just putting a buff on a grinder – the arbors are longer on a buffer and you will appreciate it. You’ll also appreciate leaving grinding wheels on your grinder. Too, many of the entry level grinders are very low wattage and buffing is a surprisingly big power consumption pig. The 6″ HF buffer should be 4 amps or about 500 watts, and it’s nice for the job.
Pictures of the items are below:
HF Buffer , or equivalent – may be gray in newer listings. And far front left, a very filthy bar of yellow 5 micron cut and color compound as mentioned above. These bars are large, and you can break them in half and use one half elsewhere, or store it if you have a tendency to lose the first one. Ignore the gray deburring wheel – it’s on there for other reasons.
While the buffer is shown on the bench here, I prefer to use the buffer on the floor. You can simply put your foot on a corner of the base so it doesn’t move, and then everything is below you and your orientation is to the front of the wheel rather than reaching under the buffer if the buffer is at belly height.
Acceptable wheels: Note the stitch should come within about 1/4-3/4″ of the edge. You don’t need or want narrow or really wide wheels. These are about 3/4″ wide and that’s fine. Narrow wheels will just increase the amount of time you spend doing the job. Note these are listed as cotton stitched or “shellac”, though the shellac cheap wheels that are on amazon or other places, and that work well, just seem like yellow versions of these.
Do not get a big floppy loose wheel without stitching, and as mentioned above, avoid aggressive wheels with layers of sisal or something harsh mixed in with the cotton. The latter will beat up edges. The wheels below are about $7 each as of posting this (2023). In terms of getting good results, there is no reward for buying something expensive.
When you first start using a wheel, bits of cotton string may come out. Ignore them, they’ll disappear soon enough and they won’t affect results.
Note, I don’t do revenue links – you can find the things on amazon and the McMaster link is just an anonymous link. I despise the online habit of astroturfing the advice environment to get people to click on links that provide a kickback.
Of Making by Hand with Wood and Steel 