"ABC" wrote in message
...
I hope I have come to the right NG as I saw many threads about buffing
here. I just want to learn to buff small metal articles like stainless
steel watch bands, spoons etc. I bought a 1/6 hp motor with flex
shaft, white and green rouge, and some small buffing wheels. These are
my problems so far:

1: Do I need to change the "angle of attack", or just always apply the
wheel to the work piece in one same direction? It seems that once I
change the angle, the lust disappears somewhat.

2. For the finer buffing , I used a cloth wheel(just sewn once near
the middle). One the wheel revs up, the cloth thread begins to fly
out( because of the anti centrifugal force ) so there is lint all over
the place and the wheel gets smaller and smaller. Even worse when I
apply the wheel to the rouge. Is the normal for this kind of wheels?
Should I just tolerate the lint?

3. It seems that the finer the rouge, the slower RPM should be used?
Correct?

Any help appreciated


Reflection and scatter. When you buff in one direction, you get ridges in
the surface which reflect more as you look along them and scatter more when
you look across them. That's why random orbit buffers are nice, they sort
of mix things up from all directions. Same with sanding of course, though
the ridges are deeper because they're made with larger particles.

Use the chamois and rouge as the butler did for best look.

Speed doesn't make a lot of difference. Since you're dragging grit past at a
higher rate with higher speed, you can scratch away more in the same time,
but material removal is not really the objective of buffing.

Cloth wheels will put out lint and get rouge airborne, so use a dust mask.
Not sure how hard/long you're buffing to notice a loss in diameter.
Normally you use coarser to finer in stages rather than start with finest
and buff longer. Use one wheel for Tripoli and one for rouge. With two
ends on my buffer, I put one on each end, tacking off before I go to the
rouge. I then randomize the direction as much as possible to get an even
scatter.