I've been looking through a lot of the buffer threads that I can find and am thinking of getting one. I have one question about them though. Is there a big difference between the 3000ish RPM buffers and the 1800ish ones? The reason I ask is that it seems that it would be much safer to work with a lower RPM, but I don't actually know for sure.
Another reason I ask is that I haven't been able to find a buffer online that's relatively cheap (around 100 dollars or less) that has a lower RPM. The only ones with RPMs below 3000 that I saw were Baldors, and those cost 300 something dollars if I remember correctly.
I know Glen uses the Harbor Freight ones which are very cheap, so maybe he can add any info about working with higher RPM ones. And I saw Brad's restoration videos and he uses a modified grinder which seems to go to lower RPMs. I was thinking of going that route, but didn't know if there were any disadvantages to it. I remember a thread Glen posted about grinders being hard to work on because the distance between the wheel and the motor is small, but Brad's seemed to be pretty good from what I could tell.

Any answers to any of the many questions above would be greatly appreciated.