andyt Posted July 27, 2011 Report Share Posted July 27, 2011 Well had some good practice spraying and polishing recently What did I learn? Make sure to clean your guns! Ruined my first 2 thinking I had cleaned them properly & left them filled with some thinner, thankfully they were very cheap £30 for the pair. After sanding from 1000 to 2000 I tried using a grinding machine with soft buffing mops running at 3000 (I think)rpm, didn't use the compounds that came with the kit as they seemed far too corse. Couldn't get any good results, unless it was really light pressure that was too difficult to control it burned through on some test pieces. Looked at some youtube vids & the seemed to be using far more pressure than I was. Ended up using foam pads in the pillar drill running at max speed 2000ish rpm with 3m perfect then finesse, not done any swirl removal yet. Any idea what went wrong using the buffing machine? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kammo1 Posted July 27, 2011 Report Share Posted July 27, 2011 Andy from what I have learned from years of experience is that any buffing arbor should be no more than 1200-1500 RPM for "ANY" finish. If you search some of my posts here I used a converted grinder with a dimmer switch fitted in the live circuit of the motor and acted like a Variac where it slowed the speed down but had no torque whatsoever good where I never had burn through but bad as I could not apply pressure as it would stop. After years of searching and asking a ton of questions I settled which I still use to this day and that is a ordinary variable speed orbital sander with Menzerna pads and 2 compounds T-Cut and Farecla G10. Ok you'll get a **** load of people who will spout off what they use and thats fine but I have been in this game for nigh on 30 years and alot of it is smoke and mirrors if you want to know what works with 100% perfect results Menzerna pads and the 2 compounds I mentioned. Neither will set you back a small fortune and are easily obtainable and a sander,pads and compounds will set you back less than £60 and thats a small price to pay for results that will give you 100% GUARANTEED perfection trust me on this oh and I've buffed out rock hard Polyesters with ease as well as piss thin Nitro finishes and both results came out like glass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauliemc Posted July 28, 2011 Report Share Posted July 28, 2011 Andy from what I have learned from years of experience is that any buffing arbor should be no more than 1200-1500 RPM for "ANY" finish. If you search some of my posts here I used a converted grinder with a dimmer switch fitted in the live circuit of the motor and acted like a Variac where it slowed the speed down but had no torque whatsoever good where I never had burn through but bad as I could not apply pressure as it would stop. After years of searching and asking a ton of questions I settled which I still use to this day and that is a ordinary variable speed orbital sander with Menzerna pads and 2 compounds T-Cut and Farecla G10. Ok you'll get a **** load of people who will spout off what they use and thats fine but I have been in this game for nigh on 30 years and alot of it is smoke and mirrors if you want to know what works with 100% perfect results Menzerna pads and the 2 compounds I mentioned. Neither will set you back a small fortune and are easily obtainable and a sander,pads and compounds will set you back less than £60 and thats a small price to pay for results that will give you 100% GUARANTEED perfection trust me on this oh and I've buffed out rock hard Polyesters with ease as well as piss thin Nitro finishes and both results came out like glass. +1 to prety much all of that. I got rid of my polishing arbour after I had one too many burn thrus. I use a vice mounted drill with an adjustable clutch now, so I can set it to stop if I push too hard against it. Runs at about 1000 rpm max. but thats realy just for a final buff, I use a rondom orbit sander with sponge polishing heads for almost everything else. It may take a little longer, but it s still faster than having to re-do a finish because i burned thru on a quilted top or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyt Posted July 31, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 cheers for the advice guys, appreciate it, makes sense - grinding/ buffing machine running too fast. Did some some googling & Stewmacs expensive one was running at at 800ish rpm with big mops, other guys running slack drive belts to, so it would slow to a stop at pressure, like in tight horn to neck interface - made sense. Got some Menzerna pads off ebay, - just stick them on the DA & you only have to worry about holding the guitar down somehow, thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kammo1 Posted August 1, 2011 Report Share Posted August 1, 2011 Andy all I use to hold the guitar down is literally the stuff that you get to line the drawers for knives and forks, I've also seen the same stuff that they sell for using with a router called router matt or something like that.Periodically make sure its got no dust on the matt as it tends to loose it's stickiness and the body will move about when buffing as the dust acts like a lubricant where it will slide around. What I do is just rinse mine under some luke warm water and fairy liquid and it makes it sort of sticky again and holds the guitar body without moving, hope it helps bro and let us know how you get on and I'm sure you'll agree your quest to buffing bodies will be a thing of the past and it would be nice to have some input back to let everyone know that the system works Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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