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So, I want to get a bench grinder to try my hand at razor restoration. I take it, it's good to have one with adjustable speed? I found a craftsman that has that feature, a little above my price range but I could hold off a few more months and get it. Any suggestions on what any of you guys use?
Ya, not a bench grinder. While I own a small army of them they will never see my razors.
For cleaning I use a buffer. I have heard good things about the buffers from harbor freight.
I will occasionally take a razor to my knife grinder, but that is only for regrinding and I'm not happy with my results yet.
Try with sand paper fist. Then turn to the bench grinder. Just my 2 cents. I'm sure others will agree.
If you've never restored one, start with sandpaper. Do at least one, maybe two before you start on a buffer. It's hard to screw stuff up very quickly with sandpaper. Then move to a buffer after a couple of razors. I'm buying mine from Harbor Freight.
Are there any pics or links to see one of the Harbor Freight buffer?
Also, what grits would I need for restoration? Probably some really course through fairly fine?
Depends on what your trying to achieve. If there is pitting you want to remove you may need to start around 120 grit (keep in mind there is only so much steel you can remove before trashing the razor, particularly if its a full hollow ground). if its just a little clean-up you could start at 600 and see if it gets you the results your looking for and work up from there.
On a razor with pitting that I want to take to a near mirror finish I would typically use: 120, 150, 180, 220, 240, 280, 320, 360, 400, 600, 800, 1200, 1500, 2000, 3000 then polish with metal polish, but I think I'll invest in some Micromesh soon too.
Hope that helps.
Grant
+1 to handsanding first, but the harbor freight buffer is the 6 inch buffer they sell on there website( I'm on my phone so I can't link ya ) u want to use 4 inch buffing wheels though with it . I have two of them and they hold up great , def worth the small investment( u can get them for 40 bucks or so )
HI Excuse me quick question, to make new handles from acrylic can you tell me where I can find a pattern? I use a laser for cutting, thanks Pat
Pat, you probably ought to start a new thread. Might get you more responses.
Hand sanding is fine with me as long as there's not too much pitting. For big projects I would like to use the buffer wheels with greaseless compound though. I watched a few videos of a guy using a bench grinder with buffer wheels loaded with the greaseless compound. I'll check Harbor Freight to see what they have, thanks.
Any one have info on a different buffer from harbor freight? The one I was looking at from them was 3600 rpm and couldn't turn it down. I thought that was rather fast, has anyone had issues with that speed?
Nope, works just fine with 4in wheels. 6in wheels will heat up very fast.
Buff barehanded and quench in tumbler of water at the slightest feeling of heat. Once you feel heat, it will continue to heat quickly. Too hot and you will ruin the temper.
Castwell’s Plating sells all the wheels and compounds you will need and also has great tutorials.
There is also much written on buffing in the workshop forum.
Can’t beat the HF buffer, I have one and also a Baldor 1800 rpm that sells for almost 10 times the cost of the HF buffer, they both get exactly same results.
This is the buffer I got from harbor freight last night. They only have polishing compounds though and do not carry greaseless compound. I havent got a chance to add any of their product to the wheels yet but im thinking about hand sanding a lot of the major rust and then bringing it to the wheel with their polishing compound that says its for rust removal. The razor in the picture has very very little pitting so I think this process will be ok until I can get some greaseless compound. Currently the price of the stuff is more than what IAttachment 183126 paid for the buffer itself...
Put the spacer on the inside of the wheel. I make spacers from PVC pipe and a large washer, so the nut just screws on fully, hand tight, to get the wheel as far from the motor as possible and give you room to work.
Buy smaller wheels.
Don’t bolt the buffer to the bench. If you are moving the buffer, you are using way too much pressure.
Great advice ! Thank you I'm glad to hear the wheels can be hand tight, I felt pretty silly not being able to figure out how to tighten them down more since the threads turn the same direction as the motor and no where to hold onto it. I got 6 in wheels because that's what harbor freight had nothing smaller I'll look elsewhere. Thanks again!Quote:
Originally Posted by Euclid440
