Antler Handle Buffing ?

H

hoosier784

Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Messages
13
Hello,

I am attempting to buff out antler handle material and cannot get the color of the buffing compound (hunter green) from fully buffing out of the antler. Any suggestions for removing the compound without taking away the shine? I have tried an extended buff but no matter how long I buff I can still see a distinct shade of green in the handle material.

Much Thanks,

hoosier
 
1 try white buffing compound on a clean wheel. 2 what I do is tung oil after buffing. I rub it good after buffing. It will help with the shine and clean some too. Most likley some other have better ideas. Good luck.
 
I have used soap and water, carb cleaner, WD40 etc. but find that they all tend to dull the polish on the antler. Try gun stock wax from Brownell's. It is fairly liquid and does a nice job of removing the wax based compound and leaves a nice finish on the antler. Maybe a wax based furniture polish would work too.
 
You may want to try using the finest steel wool you can find and denatured alcohol to scrub the antler of the wax. You might want to try Murphy's oil soap as well.

This might tend to open the pores a bit, so you'll want to allow the antler to dry completly before steel wooling again. It should be prepped enough to seal with tung oil, polyurethane, or CA glue.

Use bee's wax or good hard paste wax to buff. Don't forget to show us what you come up with. :)
 
Sounds like the real problem is getting the green polish out. If previous suggestions don't work, you may have to start over by sanding the green out. Definitely come back with the white polish on a clean wheel as suggested previously.
 
I normaly sand to at least 600 grit then lightly oil with mineral oil, baby oils the same stuff, then buff. Then give a liberal soaking with mineral oil and scrub the crud out with a tooth brush and mineral oil. I use a tooth pick on the noby sections that trap compound. Normaly I don't have a big problem with traped compound, if there's any peth showing I first seal with thin super glue before finish sanding and buffing.

I have run into open pores on some stabilized wood, and have found that a couple of good coats of tung oil or watco danish oil before buffing seems to keep the crud out.
 
Try using pink "no scatch" rouge for the final buff. You'll still get black residue if you have metal guard or pins. I've found that Johnson's paste furniture wax does a great job of removing the residue. Use a clean rag and wipe on the was and remove before it sets up. This leaves a nice clean, shiny finish and you can come back with more wax later.
Rick
 
Clean like Mr. Burke says.
Th baby oil will break down the compound.
Then, in the future, with antler and a lot of woods, DO NOT use any compound at all! Just keep a designated clean white buff on the side. Take the material to about 1200-1500 grit and buff lightly with the clean white wheel. Remove a little stitching so as to give a little freedom to the buff but have hard backing below it.
 
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