Thread: Greaseless polishing compound?

I want to buy some of this polishing compound as i hear lots of you use it for restoration. I have a Dremel and picked up some buffing pads for it. Thinking ill need to buy better ones as these are thin little cotton pads.

Anyway, i was at Harbor Freight the other day and seen they have 3 different color clay like polishing compounds. Has anyone used these? Are they worth buying? Or should i just buy the huge bags (3lbs) of the stuff? The H.F. stuff dont list grits.

And if i was to buy the real deal stuff, what grits should i be buying? I hope to buy a real bench buffer in the future but id rather have one that is both buffer and grinder. And i guess i need a variable speed? Well, this is in the future. Right now im wondering about the compounds. Thanks for any help.

Greaseless will not work on a Dremel very well, Dremels work with speed and have little if any Torque..

Caswell is good place to get grit and polishing cakes, as well as information on polishing and wheels. I cannot imagine using the same machine to buff and grind. As far as dremels go, that is a tough call. As Glen said they are most often made for speed. There are more expensive models that have some serious torque. Personally I like my Dremel with a hand held flex shaft and a foot pedal. I use it with an engravers block to hold the blade. I don't use greaseless with my dremel, but I do use it with my buffer. There is a learning curve with all power tools. Go slow and hopefully no people or blades will be injured.

My problem is room. I can set up up device on my bench but to have a buffer and a grinder im just out of room. I'll scrap.the dremmal idea i guess. Id rather do this the right way. Now if i could have a buffer or grinder that i could put on the bench and remove when done with it. This might work. But something spinning like this needs to be bolted down. Something to think about for sure.

I seenbthe Castwell buffers. 3/4 horse, 3450rpm. Is that the speed you all buff at? Sounds a bit fast to me. I thought you would want to be able to slow it down.

They are all very useful, I'm not sure what I would go with if I could only have one. There are ways in a limited space bench to swap out tools on the bench without doing unbolting them. My first tool shed was 10x12. I'm not sure if I have a lot more space now. The building is much bigger but I have bigger tools and more tools. When you have less space it simply means you have to be more innovative.

Sense i have a feeling that buffing could get messy, im now thinking a stand made for it out the back door of my garage. I could bolt it down on the bird bath but i bet the wife would throw a fit. It wouldnt hold a buffer but the idea makes me laugh.

I got some figur8ng to do about all this. I want to be able to polish up a blade to remove rust and bring out a nice finish but if i only do this 4 or 6 times a year...

It's not a cheap option, but this is what I use: Foredom M.BL Bench Lathe. It has variable speed, and for polishing two screws and wingnuts are more than sufficient to hold it to the bench - so it's easy to move when space is needed. I use 3" buffs for hollow grinds, 4" wheels for wedges and scales. You can get a cable drive attachment so you can run a handpiece off it as well. I also use the drill press fixture with the flex shaft and handpiece because of the variable speed and high torque.

It beats the hell out of a Dremel in every way.

Most of the Baldor’s,(top of the line), run at 1700, Harbor Freight sells a 6 inch buffer that many of us have that sell for around 30 bucks, and runs at 3400 rpm. I have both and a no name buffer, that also runs at 3400. All 3 perform exactly the same. Baldor’s are about 10 times the cost of a HF.

Use 4 inch wheels and you will be fine. HF sells a cast iron stand, on sale for about $30, that I have thought about picking up, but I always seem to need, to put something down near the buffer, so I use a workbench.

I cover it and the back stop in cardboard and just vacuum the mess, (polishing dust). I made a splatter guard from a cereal box that contains, the spin off, when loading the wheels, there is a post on it somewhere, there are tons of buffing post.

As said Castwell is the go to for supplies. I mostly use 600 and 400 greaseless, though I have all the grits, I do use various greased compounds. Do buy quality wheels.

Name brand quality compounds are not much more, so I buy the name brand, and they come in larger sticks so are really cheaper, in the long run.

As said there is a learning curve, so be careful. I remove the edge off any blade with a diamond file, that I work on, especially buffing.

For buffing, you are better off with 1700 rpm. The 3400 rpm buffers are too fast unless you use small wheels. Caswell also sells a 1200 rpm buffer.

Make sure that you read the buffing safety information page on the Caswell site. Please study and understand the concept of the safe and danger zones.

Caswells has all the info right there in their Faq sheets

RPM is only a small part of the Equation,, the important part is what is called SFPM the polishing compounds have a recommended SFPM also

We tend to use smaller wheels for razors to get into the hollows a 4" wheel is the largest I use personally, so you have to start figuring SFPM
Be cognizant that going too slow on polishing compounds does nothing good to the steel Greaseless is a different formula..



Surface Feet Per Minute