Advise on buffing set up

[Forrest Taylor]

I have not set up a buffing arrangement yet. I have a buffing wheel cabinet with an air filter that has a 1/2hp motor with two arbors.
I also have another stand alone 1/2hp motor with two arbors for a total of 4 wheels.
I'll be using it mostly for knife making, steel, nickel silver, and brass. Will be doing some jewelry making as well using silver and copper.
What I'm looking for is advice on what to use and in what order, loose muslin, sewn muslin, loose jewelers, sisal. Also the suggested progression of rouge.
I have two hard scotch-brite wheels and a medium grit scotch-brite flapped wheel for deburring an surface conditioning.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Use the one in the cabinet for jewelry. It may be unsafe for knives.

The one setup with an open motor should have nothing any closer than 12" below it and 24" behind it. 1/2HP won't throw a very large wheel, so stick with 6" wheels. Use the widest buffing wheel available, which will probably be a 60 layer buff. I prefer treated muslin. A HF buffer stand will work well for this motor. You probably need to add the shaft adapters, so make sure you get a left and right adapter. You also want some wheel collars to provide stiffness. 2" would be fine for a 6" wheel.

If the motor is not TEFC, vacuum it out after every buffing session.

 

[Forrest Taylor]

Good advise. I've used them enough to know buffers tend to snatch things out of your hands and throw them, so I had already thought about not using the cabinet for anything sharp and pointy.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I have buffed things professionally pretty much every day for well over 40 years. take it from me that you need to think about where things will go when they come out of your fingers.