Im going to make a special rubber room for my buffer

Bruce Bump

Bruce Bump

Joined
Dec 2, 1999
Messages
9,910
Dang I hate that thing! Every time I buff a small part it flys out of my hand and slams to the floor or bounces off the wall. When or if I find the piece its all mangled, bent or scratched! These little parts take days to make too. :mad:
 
I feel your pain Bruce, got a throught and tip sheath waiting on the third tip, which the buffer bounced the second one off the wall.
 
Every once in a while a guy posts about his plans for making a great shop. I know Ed Fowler once asked everyone about what ideas we would have in our own "Dream Shop" At the time I believe that everyone saw an advantage in some type of flooring that would allow an easy clean up...

However now I believe that a different type of flooring around the buffer is called for....

My latest idea is to place a horse mat that we get for the insides of horse trailers as a under-buffer flooring.

This type of 1 inch thick rubber mat should be able to catch the blade before it hits the cement floor and prevent any scratches too.
What I have noticed in the many times I have had a blade ripped from my fingers is that most of the time the blade lands on the point. (Why is this? I have no idea)..

The other idea I had for a "Dream Flooring" would be to have 8 inches of clean sand around the buffer. This would not only stop a blade from getting scratched, but it would also stop a blade from bounceing.

But the down side is that many guests to my shop are cats....and well...the Big Buffer Sandbox might prove to be too big of target for my cats...
 
Rubber isn't such a bad idea, Bruce. Why not consider a rubber floor mat like the anti-fatigue mats? Tack one to the wall behind the buffer and one to the floor around the buffer.
 
I am not so sure about rubber, even with cement floors I have had to "duck and cover" a lot in my career and figure if the rubber were on the floor I would have to wear body armour. When I have a problem I get a piece of old carpet and put it down under the buffer...seems to dampen rebound nicely and absorbs a lot of the velocity with out damaging the part.
 
I feel your pain Brother! I tried putting my buffer back a little further on the bench, and placing a piece of rubber floor matting under the wheels.......abut all I accomplished was a bigger bounce :eek: when I lost my grip on a small piece. My biggest gripe is that the screws we use for folders are non-magnetic.....ya get one trimmed down, and everything is working great, then you loose it on the floor!! :mad: I have some old carpet on the shop floor and between that and the two dogs dragging stuff around, about all I can do is hang my head and start on a new screw. AAAHHHHH! The joys of Knifemaking....
 
I just bought a truck load of industrial floor mat at the auction I bought the baldor grinder. $3 :D It is thinner rubber than the hole type rubber mats. Plus this stuff has carpet on top of that. It is the type you see at some gas stations. It would be perfect I bet. I will post a picture later, I have to go help tear out a downtown historic building for all the 12'-16' pine 2x4's (tons) and old wood trim and wanscoating +$. :D
 
As a designer and manufacturer of fine jewelry, I've been having buffers grab stuff outta my hands now for 27 years! I polish lots of very small stuff too. Anything with a hole in it; I just use a piece of single strand copper wire from Radio Shack or similar, maybe .035 thickness. Sometimes I leave the insulation on it, sometimes I strip it. Depends on what I'm polishing. If it gets flung, it's still easier to find with a piece of wire hooked to it. As for screws, heres how watchmakers polish'em. Use a piece of 1/4 or so 316 soft stainless rod. Drill and tap a hole for the screw to be polished in the end and trim off that end with your grinder so's to end up with what would look like a No2 yellow pencil, sharpened, with the lead cut off right where it meets the wood: that being where the screw would go. Screw in the screw to be polished and take off. With a buffer wheel rotating toward you, keep the head of the screw "up" or level, "AND ALWAYS SLIGHTLY TILTED TO THE RIGHT" so the screw does'nt un-screw while you are polishing. Each end of this small "stainless pencil" can have a different thread, how many would you need? three maybe? Dummy attachments could be made for nearly any part could'nt they? So's to polish it efficiently?
Also, for those who don't already know this, there is a right and a wrong way to mount ANY sewn muslin buffing wheel. Take the new wheel and look at it straight on, just as it would be seen in use. With your free hand, run it over the top of the wheel as if smoothing back a kid's hair before Church. Now pivot the whee around the other way as if it were a coin spinning on the table top and feel it again. You will see (because of the nature of weaving the cloth in the first place) that one way felt smooth (going with the grain so to speak) the other way was contrary and rough. The manufactures have know this for years and make sure when they are sewing these buffs together to always orient the warp of the material thread accordingly. The exact same is true for the big 10" wheels we use in knifemaking as for the small 6" ones I use at work. Needles to say, mounted correctly, they polish and WEAR much better. Just a tip if you did'nt know already.
One other thing, once in a while I get a big buff that just won't run smooth; out of ballance. I've taken a short, pointed metal screw with fine threads, made myself a homemade lead washer and screwed it into the side of the buff about a 1/3 back from the edge in between the stitching. This is trial and error but of course I'm basically just "ballancing the tire" when you get it in a place where it is doing the job, smooth up the end of the screw and trim the length so it won't cut or scratch and screw it back in the useable hole so it doesn't come through the other side.

regards, mitch
 
question I have: how important is the speed?

I have 2 buffing setups:

1 - mandrel-mounted buffs on a drill press
2 - buffs mounted to a variable speed motor

I usually buff at around 2500-3000 rpm. Is that what you guys do? Off-the-shelf buffers I've seen run at 5000 on up to 10,000 rpm. At that speed, a misguided thought is dangerous...:(

I haven't had any problems running at lower speeds - but maybe you guys know something I don't know...? :confused:
 
Dan,

This is from the Caswell site:

"BUFF RUNNING SPEEDS
For best results your wheel should maintain a surface speed of between 3600 & 7500 Surface Feet Per Minute. (SFPM). The higher your speed, the better and quicker your results.

Formula for calculating surface speed of wheel in SFPM.

SFPM = 1/4 x diameter of Wheel x RPM (revs of spindle per min.)

Therefore an 8" wheel @ 3600 RPM =2 x 3600 = 7200SFPM."

I remember someone else posting a similar figure sometime back.

Regards,
Greg
 
One problem with buffing at too high a speed is that it creates more localized heat and it is much easier to get the dreaded "orange peel" on any number of hardened steels. Nothing wrong with it, just have to get used to the skill. Thus, one has to be careful not to bear down too hard without frequent coolings on blades and SS guards. Precious metal- and plating- polishing techniques do not always apply to steel.

That said, it can be used as a cool technique to get an uncommon finish. There was someone using "overbuffing" on Ti to get a very cool finish on folder scales on one of the forums not too long ago.

The other problem with high speed buffers is that they tend to grab a whole lot easier. Anyone who's had a blade smack em in a leg or chest knows they don't want it to happen again. I'll stick with my old 1725RPM Baldor and take my time, I'm not in a race.

Bruce, some people have designed a guard around their buffers that acts somewhat like a gun range bullettrap to deflect "flung parts" downward and contain them. This also allows for connection of a vacuum to collect the blasted ultrafine lung-rotting dust. :grumpy: (That's the crap that drove me out of knifemaking for a long time.)

Great advice, Mitch, I hope my old feeble brainbox retains that until it needs it!!!
 
You guys have me so paranoid, I don't even go into my shop without my mask already on. :(

I use 4" or 6" wheels and have only lost control of a piece I was buffing once.

What's the slowest speed you can still get good results with?
 
pendentive said:
You guys have me so paranoid, I don't even go into my shop without my mask already on. :(
Daniel,

I don't want anyone paranoid, just careful. :) Breathing is very precious, and when it's gone, it's gone for good usually. My inability to breath controls my life. It's my own fault. If I can make one person pay enough attention to save their lungs, then I won't be quite the fool I've already been. I'd rather see you put that thang on as you enter the shop than forget or ignore it just once. Sorry to preach, but.....

I ran down to the shop to "fix a fly-scratch" one time. I decided it was so small a job I didn't need the mask. After I started, I decided to rake the buff, then reload it. Then I polished the scratch out. Shortly after I couldn't breathe well, and started a persistent cough. I developed pneumonitis from it. My lungs lit up on an xray with the metallic-based crap inside. I coughed constantly for six months. Even after I healed, I couldn't wear a respirator because it was too hard to breathe through. One thing led to another and I dropped out of knifemaking for a long time (years). Nowadays I'm not so healthy, and some of it traces back to that single incident. I don't breath well even on oxygen, and I can't begin to tell you how much of a PITA that is! :)

As for buffing speed, Baldor includes 1725 and 3450RPM buffers in their industrial line. I assume they know what they're doing. I use 8-10" buffs, so I would assume with those smaller wheels you could get by at 3450. Personally, I like the slower speed and larger buffs...more compound.

Really, just pay close attention and inspect frequently to prevent problems with finish. Keep plenty of compound on the wheel. Mount the machine at crotch level, not up high. (That's another story!) Use the lower front quadrant of the wheel, and don't bear down too hard. That said, something's still going to fly eventually. Keep pets and friends away! Wearing a face shield will also provide some greater measure of protection. Poeple buff stuff every day..it's just a high-attention task. NO DISTRACTIONS!
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There is a lot of excellent advice from all, wow Mitch I did not know that.
Most of my buffers are on 1/4 horse 1725 motors, with pulleys to slow the wheels to a crawl. For the Baldor I toss my used 2 x 72 inch belts on the floor under and behind it. These make a trap that absolutely stops a blade from flying around (so far). As has been said 1725 rpm is plenty fast enough.
Take Care
 
Hey, finally a use for all them old belts I'm so loathe to discard!!! Thanks, Ed!
 
Put a cardboardbox filled with some type of padding such as old newspapers wadded up on the floor under the buffer. That way things that get flung will (usually) stay in the box and not be damaged.

As far as those tiny screws... forget about it! They are gone. Vanished. Where do they go??? No one knows...
 
It's so true.....where in the world do they go? I have spent tons of time on my hands and knees even in my relatively clean shop and I can't find them half the time.

Thanks for that info Mitch, I sure didn't know it either. :)
 
I remember somewhere reading and seeing picture of havy fabric hung under the buffing wheels in this one gents shop to catch small parts if they went flying. I think it was in Blade many moons ago.

I still want a rubber room and a bullet proof suit.
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I think we all need a rubber room sometimes. :D
 
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