Buffing again....

[KCat]

Gerry? Kendall? What's the difference between a "soft" felt wheel buff and a "hard" felt wheel buff. uh... i mean, that may sound obvious but what is the difference in usage. How would the standard Dremel felt wheel be described?

 

I want to get more felt wheels but can't see spending $3.50 each at the local hardware store. Wish I'd thought of that when I ordered the muslin buffs from Kingsley.

 

Or that I could think of other stuff to order from them that would justify the $6 s&h for a $3 box of buffs.

 

thanks for any help you can provide.

k

[Mike]

I'm neither Gerry nor Kendall , but hard felt wheels are used for more aggressive polishing, or highlighting raised portions of heavily textured or three-dimensional areas, while soft ones are MUCH less aggressive, tend, in my experience, to hold compound better, and get down into nooks and crannies better. For instance, on sterling rings I'll often polish the whole thing up with silicone polishing wheels, then give the whole thing a going-over with a clean, soft felt wheel to remove any oxide left on the surface, then oxidize the ring, or parts of it, with liver of sulphur, and I'll then buff the black oxidization off high spots with a hard felt wheel, which helps leave the recessed areas black, as intended.

 

I haven't used a dremel felt wheel in a long while, but I recall them as being fairly soft. A great source for this kind of stuff it Rio Grande (www.riogrande.com, I think), a jeweler's supply house in New Mexico. Their tool catalog is a delightful way to spend an afternoon window-shopping.

[KCat]

many thanks, Mike. I'll check 'em out. Didn't quite get to them inthe google search apparently.

 

best

kcat

[Gerry]

Hi KC.

 

In my experience, the harder felt wheels are best left to metal polishing. In my workshop, they are actually used with the Lee Valley green compound for the final step in sharpening knives and other cutting tools. The edge you can get is fantastic, and the metal can be brought to a mirror finish. Of course, with jewellers rouge, or other polishing compounds they deliver great results with many metals.

 

The most common felt wheels available for the Dremels are often referred to as a 'felt bob', and are available in a variety of shapes. Most often they are an inch in diameter or less, and have a very firm feel to them. You could indent them with a fingernail, but not readily.

 

I do not use these wheels on plastic except in *very* special circumstances and *very* carefully.

 

The cloth wheels are usually larger in diameter (1-2 inches) and very gentle on materials, and I consider them to be pretty safe. Both the material and stitching will affect the polishing capabilities and feel, so you should try a variety if available. The more stitching there is, the firmer the wheel, and the more aggressive (and effective) it can be. Some applications use wheels that just have loose circles of cloth bound at the mandrel only, and only centrifugal force keeps them together in a wheel shape. These are the gentlest, hardest to load and least aggressive polishing accessories available. Although I am risking a severe comeuppance from the purists here I daresay one would possibly be in more danger of accidentally creating damage with hand polishing than with one of these...

 

Both types of wheel are available to mount on larger motors. My favorites are 6 inch diameter wheels (both cloth and felt) that I find useful for a wide variety of applications. Again, the plastic polishing is mainly done on the cloth wheels, and surprisingly perhaps, I find that these larger wheels are gentler than the minature Dremel types. This is perhaps because the motor and wheel are firmly fixed, and when you are polishing a pen part - you are actually just holding the pen itself, and applying that to the wheel. This allows you to use two hands to hold it (despite what that sounds like - your grip can be *very* gentle), and the pressure on the wheel can be extremely light. You are sensitive to the slightest change in pressure, and easily feel the changes in drag as the wheel is working or the compound is getting dirty or wearing out.

 

With the Dremel, I find I most often use it with the Dremel in one hand, the pen in the other, sometimes resting on the table. This way, fine motor control of your hands is harder (than with the finger grip of the pens) to achieve, and the feedback surprisingly is not as good.

 

Another reason I feel the larger wheels are superior is the larger contact area against the pen body, and although the detail work is not as fine - the blending of worked areas is much better.

 

KC, you mention both soft and hard felt wheels for the Dremel. I haven't seen these, but have encountered the graduations in the larger wheels used for sharpening. The LV catalogue - available on-line:

 

LV Felt Wheels

 

In comparing these to the Dremel felt wheels I have, I would guess that the Dremel bobs are medium not hard, but please note that the medium is *much* firmer than any of the cloth wheels, regardless how they are sewn.

 

And remember, most of my comments above are meant to apply to polishing plastic. I use the small felt wheels all the time for metal parts, where the material being polished is not nearly as sensitive to heat and abrasion (not referring to gold plating here..)

 

I can get you a mandrel and a couple of cloth wheels suitable for the Dremel for under $10.00 CDN should you continue to have difficulties finding a local supply KC.

 

Cheers

 

Gerry

[KCat]

well - i should explain - i have some cloth wheels for the dremel and haven't used them yet as I only recently got the speed control (very limited in it's range unfortunately)

 

the felt wheels go on the $10 nail polisher I bought and are not used on the edge but flat on.

[Gerry]

Gotcha.

 

Gerry

[rsilver000]

The differnece in the wheels is easy to see. The more they are sewn together and the higher up the wheel the stitching, the harder and therefore the more aggressive the felt in the buffing wheel. The buffs made for plastic are loose and very flexible and are used by car restoration people to buff out scratches in plastic lens etc. They are not aggressive and can be used on pens on a slow rpm. Hope this helps. By the way, there are only a few suppliers that sell the loose buffs for plastic ie. Eastwood .

Rob

[KCat]

well, i thought Kingley was charging too much for a tiny plastic bag of 12 muslin buffs...

 

but wrote to another seller and for a $4 box of 24 felt buffs - they want $10+ in S&H.

 

wha??????

[KendallJ]

Kcat, ran across this thread in scouting another question on polishing, and realized I must have missed it.

 

Don't use felt! I'm not sure the delta between hard and soft, but I would guess the hard felt is like the felt wheel that Dremel sells for their tools. I tried it on an Esterbrook, and it melted the celluloid on low speed.

 

I got a bag of muslim buffs from Kingley and can send you a few if you like. They work great...