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[Carl Morris]

I picked up a set of buffing wheels for tripoli, white diamond, and wax.  I like what they do on flat surfaces, but I've got some learning to do.  My experience is that if I give it a chance to grab an edge, a split second later I'm standing there empty-handed with a surprised look on my face... and the piece is tumbling across the garage floor... which doesn't improve the finish.

What's the trick for puzzles that have lots of inside edges, like the corner block?  Do you just polish the outside when it's assembled, or what?

    -- Carl

[Canuck]

Hey Carl, stick with it, you'll eventually find the 'sweet spot' on the wheels and the 'grabs' will almost dissappear   Contrary to what Robert says, you'd be surprised just how well you can get in the 'nooks and crannies' of puzzle pieces.  I completely buffed all the pieces of Jerry's 'Burrloon' puzzles and trust me they had lots of seemingly impossible spots that I was able to completely buff!  Go easy on the 'tripoli' bar, it tends to gum up somewhat and gets 'grabby' if you apply too much to the wheel.  What system do you have?  I run the 'Beall system three on a lathe set-up' and I really like it.  For your 'Corner Block' puzzle, you should have no problem doing a full buff on the interior of all the pieces, when doing inside corners avoid the edge of the buff, I've had the worst 'grabs' from that!  Let me know if you need any other info/help

[Robert Yarger]

John,

I apologize.  Your buffing system produces wonderful results, but I have never used it myself, so I am just talking in ignorance.  I just assumed that it was hard to get into corners since we did not use it for the wood carvings on the domino puzzlebox.

Still, Carl's description of his buffing attempt was as funny as hell.  I was laughing so hard that it made my wife stop her project to come over and ask what was going on.  I have never used the Beall system, but I have had pieces "yoinked" out of my hand with other equipment on several occations.  As long as I did not get hurt, that was also funny.

[Eric Fuller]

I bought the beall system on John's recommendation and it does work really well.  My experiences with it grabbing things and flinging them across the bench are the same as Carl's, so I pretty much reserve it for box exteriors at this point.  Never did find that sweet spot, and the dang thing has probably destroyed a good ten puzzle pieces easy.  I was considering mounting it over a beanbag at one point.

[Canuck]

Yeah, I've had a few 'incidents' with the 'buffing system' one in particular was an old box I was buffing and it caught an edge and sent the box between the buff and the bed of the lathe followed it up the back wall, then to the ceiling across to the opposite wall and finally to the floor, believe it or not the box had some dents in it but never broke!
The biggest thing is not presenting the leading edge of anything to the buffs or it will grab it and unless you've got a good hold of it, who knows where it will end up!
Eric, Robert, really you're finishes are already 'outstanding' I don't think buffing would add much!  The only reason I stumbled on the buffing system was when I started doing pens and slowly started to use it on puzzles and I've yet to find a puzzle piece that I couldn't put a nice 'buffed' finish on   By the way Jerry uses a similar system but with only two buffs, he does the Tripoli and then the Carnauba buff, skipping the White Diamond.

[Robert Yarger]

Once, (using that death-trap moulder attachement to the radial arm saw that everyone seemed so happy to have obtained)I had a long strip of wood pinch.  It was launched all the way across the garage and embedded itself about half way into a crate of 30-06 live ammo bullets.  I left it there for a week to remind me to be more careful in the future.  Later, when I opened the crate, several of the bullets were bent and would not fit in the gun.  Talk about a close call.

You problem sounds similar, but perhaps the snag could be reduced by heating the wax a bit before starting.  Does the Beall system come with an insurance policy?

[Carl Morris]

Go easy on the 'tripoli' bar, it tends to gum up somewhat and gets 'grabby' if you apply too much to the wheel.  What system do you have?  I run the 'Beall system three on a lathe set-up' and I really like it.  For your 'Corner Block' puzzle, you should have no problem doing a full buff on the interior of all the pieces, when doing inside corners avoid the edge of the buff, I've had the worst 'grabs' from that!  Let me know if you need any other info/help

I have the Beall system as well, I mount mine in place of the disc on my sander.

Maybe my problem is with the orientation of the pieces.  I was holding them across the wheel.  Sounds like I should be putting it in the plane of the wheel?

    -- Carl

[Carl Morris]

Carl's description of his buffing attempt was as funny as hell.  I was laughing so hard that it made my wife stop her project to come over and ask what was going on.  I have never used the Beall system, but I have had pieces "yoinked" out of my hand with other equipment on several occations.  As long as I did not get hurt, that was also funny.

After I got over being sore about dinging up my puzzle it was pretty funny.  It happens so fast that I was left thinking, what happened?  If it were a televised sporting event it would be: "Looks like he's really going to town with that buffing wheel... He needs to be careful with those edges... Wow, did you see that?!?  That puzzle rolled halfway across the garage, what a great way to test glue joints, let's take a look at that in super slow motion replay..."   

    -- Carl

[Carl Morris]

By the way Jerry uses a similar system but with only two buffs, he does the Tripoli and then the Carnauba buff, skipping the White Diamond.

I found that the White Diamond was getting into the grain of my walnut, so I buffed it back out with tripoli then waxed.  I'm doing the dip and wipe with 50/50 lacquer/thinner prior to buffing.  Should I be able to get the surface of the walnut smooth enough that the grain won't hold the White Diamond?  I don't have much of a history with woodworking, certainly not the finer points of finishing, so any advice is much appreciated.

    -- Carl

[Carl Morris]

I bought the beall system on John's recommendation and it does work really well.  My experiences with it grabbing things and flinging them across the bench are the same as Carl's, so I pretty much reserve it for box exteriors at this point.  Never did find that sweet spot, and the dang thing has probably destroyed a good ten puzzle pieces easy.  I was considering mounting it over a beanbag at one point.

I got a good chuckle out of that.  I had been picturing one of those ballistic traps they use to catch bullets!

How predictable is the direction the pieces go?  Did all of yours take off pretty much tangent to where you where last buffing, or do some of them manage to hang on part of the way around the wheel?  If I did my math right, the outer edge of the wheel is going about 40 mph, so it'd really smart if you got nailed.

    -- Carl

[Canuck]

Okay Carl, let me see if I can help out a little more with some of your questions, the first was your approach to the buffs, you mentioned you mounted them in place of your disk in the sander, does that give you full access to the face of the buffs?  Maybe I'm just not getting the picture of your set-up, can you post a pic, I'll see if I can get a pic of my set-up as well it might help.
The other thing you mentioned was the White Diamond getting in the grain of the walnut, but strangely enough I wouldn't consider walnut an 'open grain' type of wood.  Woods that I consider open grained are Wenge, Padauk, Oak, etc...so if your finding the white diamond getting imbedded in the grain most definitely your sanding prior to lacquering would be the issue, however keep in mind once the white diamond and Carnauba wax buffs have been loaded they need very little if any between buffing sessions, and applying too much white diamond will leave some residue on the piece being buffed.  Really the only buff that needs frequent applications is the tripoli, now Robert mentioned 'heating up the wax' but I'm sure you've noticed the rather high friction temperature of the buffs at speed so really that is a non-issue.  Now my set-up has the ability to vary the speed, not sure you can decrease the speed of your 'disk sander' but it might be turning a little fast for this application, I think I generally run mine at 1200rpm but I'll have to double check that.   

[Eric Fuller]

1200 RPM....hmm, that could explain a lot.  I'm running mine on a dedicated 3/4 HP motor running at 3450 RPM.

I also found the tripoli would load up in the pores a bit.  I'm probably using too much.

[Canuck]

Here's a couple of pics of my buffing set-up one of course simply showing the buffing bars below the matching buffs and the other showing how I would approach the buff, you'll notice the gap at the top of the piece, if I were to push the piece in at that point I would most certainly have it ripped out of my hand
Hope that helps

[Kerry Verne]

1200 RPM....hmm, that could explain a lot.  I'm running mine on a dedicated 3/4 HP motor running at 3450 RPM.

I looked at putting a Beall on my grinder, but they specifically mention not putting an 8" on a 3400rpm grinder. I might try a wheel on my drill press though.

[Canuck]

Hey Eric, I forgot to mention I did re-check and I'm running the buffing at speeds between 1200/1460rpm but anything above that speed would be far too fast, I'd be really concerned about the heat/friction build-up.  Also if you were getting tripoli loaded up in the pores you definitely are using too much but really it needs to be loaded often so not as much of an issue as the subsequent white diamond should eliminate the tripoli.