Thread: Is a polisher worth it?

I know from speaking with Valery from the Gentleman's Den, that he will not use power tools of any kind on his razors. He does everything by hand, and as mentioned above, up to 10 hours of sanding wouldn't be unusual.

When I was sanding up the I.Barber Anchor razor (still more work to do), I gained a vague idea how much work, concentration, and care goes into restoring these blades to such pristine condition.

I am a big fan of machines, they make our lives easier, and our things go faster. The big plus to a buffer is that you will never achieve as nice a mirror polish on steel with hand tools, or if yes, than with much more work. The buffer is a really dangerous tool, so take care, but it is one of the most used tools I have.

Now that somebody finally brought SFPM (TY Dylan) into the convo, and somebody else brought in direction (TY Rob)

It puts things more into perspective


Caswells has a very good PDF file on buffing, read it, and especially read what it says about SFPM required for proper polishing using different compounds, there is quite a bit of info in there...

Keep your eyes open for quality used equipment, I bought my Baldor for 30 or 40 bucks, don’t recall exactly.

Recently I heard of another for 50. They are out there, as are other good brands.

Either way the 40 dollar HF buffer is hard to beat, at the price. Mine is probably 4-5 years old now with no sign of problems.

Originally Posted by Steel

Just curious. Where did you order the compounds from? And why drop down to 4" wheels?

Here's something that was sent to me by the man who helped me with my homemade variable speed buffer. You will find the link to the buffer at the end.

Roy, take this little formula to figure your speed:
rpm of motor divided by the diameter of the pulley.

Use this as an example.
1750 rpm divided by 6" pulley=291
291rpm divided by 3" pulley = 97 rpm

A 10 inch wheel will run 97 rpm. So will a 6 inch wheel.

The surface speed is a different matter though. You might want to drop down to a smaller wheel:

A 10" wheel at 97 rpm is running 3,048 inches per minute.
A 6" wheel at 97 rpm is running 1,828 inches per minute

Formula to figure surface speeds of wheels:

10" x 3.1416 x 97 = surface inches per minute.
6" x 3.1416 x 97 = surface inches per minute.

Hope this helps!!


http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...-part-one.html