Polishing & Buffing Wheels Guide

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hi Mark here with Rio Grande in this

video I'm going to talk about the

different Buffs that we carry and

there's a huge variety of different

types and I'm going to try and help

explain what each is best used for and

um as you can see we have a large

variety of different Buffs uh ranging in

different sizes colors and materials and

things like that uh the most common

diameters are going to be your 6 in 3in

and 4 in and they do come in a 5 in or 8

in and some um some larger sizes are

available as well now which size of

diameter wheel you use is often dictated

to you by the machine that you're using

some of the little smaller bench laads

can only use a 3in buff like this right

here um the larger machines the

polishing cabinets and things like that

they can go um typically 6 in um and

larger but you have to check with your

machine to see what diameter you can use

they also come in a bunch of different

thicknesses called PES U common PES are

30 ply 45 ply 50 ply and 60 ply and as

you can see this is a 30 ply but it's a

really fluffy material so it's pretty

thick versus a 50 ply here with a

thinner material and it's a little bit

thinner than the 30 ply but that will

give you kind of an indication on the

width of the

wheel they also come in a razor thin

Edge uh it's really great for getting in

those really tight little places

some will have a leather Center and some

will have say like a shellac Center both

are great uh which one you use kind of

comes down to personal preference a

little bit the leather Center is a

little softer a little more Supple so

it'll ride up higher on the spindle than

the

shellac so I'm going to um be

demonstrating some polishing techniques

and I'll do that over here on this uh

durable direct flow system which is

really great because it has a

self-contained box here that's going to

help keep all the dust down and away

from me there's a port in the back uh

where the fan will pull the dust and

debris into the filters down below so

it's very very safe I'll be lowering the

lid this will help contain the dust as

well and also keep anything that comes

flying out of my hands um from hitting

me in the face and my hands will go in

through these ports right here these

little holes they're again keeping the

dust really really under control which

is really nice so next up is um how to

decide what buff to use for the first

step

steps so this is our first stage um we

have a we have a piece that we need to

polish and get that process started with

so which one do you start with well

right here I have two different examples

I have a silver ring that I've cast and

um I've done some pre-filing work I

filed off the nub and things like that

just kind of Tred up ready for that

first polishing stage um so I have a lot

of deep scratches I need to get rid of

and I want to do that fairly quickly so

I'm going to use a cut down process this

is going to be with a uh pre-treated

buff and also bobbing compound uh the

these two work really well together um

the pre-treated cloth Buffs are very

rigid very stiff and the chemical that's

in here was it going to help retain that

compound longer and allow it to cut that

ring faster one of the great things

about these stitched Buffs is that as

you use them uh they're going to get

really stiff if you can see right here

this is much stiffer than it came

previously because this all wears down

so what you can do is you can actually

remove the stitching when it gets to be

too stiff just take a knife and kind

of pluck that up a little bit and you

got to do both sides and you can pull a

string out like

that and that'll open up a whole new

layer um for you to keep on using now it

will be soft

so some applications if you wanted a

really stiff buff you would keep that

there um if you want a little bit softer

then you can remove it but the cool

thing is you can just peel that apart

kind of work it Loose a little bit and

now you're back to a softer buff so and

you can do that on all the different

Stitch Buffs not just the yellow

pre-treated

ones so I'm going to do is I'm going to

take uh the wheel here and my ring and

some bobbing compound and take it to the

buffer and go ahead and buff this

up

so what I'm doing right now is I'm

applying the bobbing compound to the

buff and I'm going to go ahead and start

polishing the ring with this cut down uh

the yellow pre-treated buff in the

bobbing compound and um going ahead and

start get these big scratches out right

away I'm applying like a medium to light

pressure um on this if I this is a

silver ring and if I push down real hard

it's going to get warm really fast and

it's already starting to heat up one

thing I could do is use a finger

protection like uh alligator tape or a

finger guard something like that and

that'll help kind of cut down the heat a

little bit so I've got most of the um uh

big scratches out it's ready for the

next stage which is going to be the

pre-polish stage so I'm about ready to

take this to the sink and clean it up

get the compound off and go on to the

next

stage now we finished our first stage

which is a cut down stage it's very

aggressive it's going to remove a lot of

the deeper scratches and things like

that it actually can reshape them met a

little bit so just be careful of of hard

edges that you want to keep because

it'll take them right out uh the next

stage is called the pre-polish stage um

this actually could be used as your

first stage for example I've switched

over here to these copper discs I've

slightly domed and uh one has a file

texture on there and the other one is

just a natural raw material um just as

it came out of the dapping block kind of

finish so it has that kind of little

rough natural material finish on there

the this would be a great starting stage

um for the pre-polish pre-polish is

going to can use a u pre-treated u buff

the yellow one that we used or can use

this tight weave muslin buff which is

another good one it's a little more

flexible than the yellow buff um so it

can handle this Dome type shape really

nicely it's going to be contoured to the

shape and things like that you can also

use um compounds like Zam which is a cut

and polish material another good one is

fabul luster um Luxy blue is another

good compound to use for this stage so

what I'll do is I'll take um I'll take

this file textured copper piece over to

the buffer uh with my my buff and uh go

ahead and polish that before I do that

though I would want to call out that

whatever buff you're using you want to

label that with the compound that you're

using on there it's really not a good

idea to use this both for bobbing

compound which is very aggressive um and

Zam because you'll never get a really

nice finish on there that way so always

make sure that your Buffs are marked

with the compound that they're going to

be used with so I'm going to head over

to the buffer and and get this

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done so uh what I'm doing right now is

I'm going ahead and apply the Zam

compound to the wheel get a nice good

coating on there and now I'm going to go

ahead and start buffing and uh I want to

buff in all kinds of different

directions here and get a nice nice

finish on there have it goes by really

fast and so just going to kind of keep

an eye on it and uh it will warm up a

little bit but it's not too bad so I got

a nice finish on there and uh I'll go

ahead and take this to the sink and go

ahead and wash off the compound uh so

it's ready for the next stage the final

polish

stage we finished our our pre-polish

stage and now we're ready to put go to

the final stage which is the high polish

um final polish stage this is when we're

going to really bring out the shine in

the object and um there's a bunch of

different Buffs that can actually do the

really good job of doing that um to go

through them kind of briefly uh we have

the coarse loose weave muslin buff a

little bit like the tight weave muslin

but it has a looser weave to it and uh

fewer stitching around the diameter so

it's going to be softer on the surface

and much more flexible so it conform to

the surface a little bit better uh much

better for your high polishing compounds

we also have the um fine all buff right

here they're again very similar to the

loose coar weave muslin uh but with no

stitching so it's very very flexible and

um you can really conform to the shapes

really very

nicely and similar to that is the

balloon cloth buff right here U same

kind of construction but this one

actually made with balloon cloth one of

the advantages to this is it does lint

less than the muslin and the flannel uh

Buffs um which is really nice and it

does a beautiful finish on there we also

have the flannel buff and uh it's very

very soft and supple they very very fine

threads on the surface now this will

lent quite a bit as you're using it and

that's totally

normal so what you're going to have to

end up doing is probably it'll shrink in

diameter over time and you'll have to

end up cutting the threads and kind of

keep so you can keep using this buff but

because of the really soft threads up

here you're going to get a very nice

finish on your piece

we also have a shammy buff uh this is

made from really fine Supple leather and

um really conforms to the surface of

your piece really nicely it doesn't lint

in much in really the same way as the

muslin does um it does discharge a kind

of debris but it's not the same as the

kind of lint um leaves a really

beautiful finish it's a little bit

slightly different than the other Buffs

um so it's definitely worth trying out

and seeing if you like it so what I'm

going to do is I'm going to take that uh

copper disc I was working on earlier

with the last stage I've washed it made

sure there's none of the Zam on here and

I I left some of the file marks on here

to see what our buff and compound will

do to those scratches maybe it'll take

them out maybe it won't so I'm going to

give it a shot with the

um flannel buff right here and the luxie

fine white Polishing Compound so I'm

going to take this to the buffer and get

it set up and we'll polish this

up

so what I'm doing right now is I'm

applying the luxi compound to the buff

getting a nice coating on there and then

I'm going to start polishing the copper

discs and I'm going to start on the part

that's nicely polished and see where

that's going and then I'm going to see

what this compound and buff will do to

the file

marks it's doing a job it's kind of

taking them out a little bit but I think

the pre-polish stage really helped me

and that's coming out really nice so I'm

going to go ahead and do is finish this

up and um what I'm done is I'll go ahead

and clean the compound off and uh I'll

be done with my my polishing so I um

finished up that final polish stage I

went ahead and cleaned out the compound

off and I kind of wanted to show you

guys the differences between the

pre-polish stage and how that affected

the piece and also the part that it did

not so if you look right here right

there it's very smooth there's no little

scratches or anything like that and

that's the side that I did the

pre-polish on and then if I turn it

around you can see this part where I

didn't so there's still some scratches

left that's when it really would have

paid off to do that pre-polish stage um

because in order to get that out with

the flannel buff and the Luxy white

would have taken a lot more time so

sometimes taking a lot of Little Steps

will get you to the Finish Line faster

than taking one big huge step with just

one buff in one compound so there's a

lot of different Buffs to choose from we

you know from pre-treated all the way to

the shammy and uh there's no reason why

you couldn't use perhaps the tight weave

muslin buff with the Luxy fine white

that's going to give you a different

finish and different results um what you

might notice though is that final

polishing compounds on the treated cloth

and maybe not work so much I hope this

is of some help if you have any

questions give us a call at800 545

6566 or visit us on the website at r

grande.com

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