Buffing

[Dave Mcintire]

What is the best buffing wheel for buffing varnished wood? (Muslin, cotton, sewed, loose, etc?)

[David Walser]

Dave — It depends on which compound you’ll be using on the wheel. In general, you want stiffer wheels with more aggressive compounds and softer wheels with finer compounds. For example, Beall recommends a linen wheel for its Tripoli compound, a cotton/linen wheel with its white diamond compound, and a flannel wheel for carnauba wax.

You asked about buffing varnished wood. For that, I use a very fine compound (finer than white diamond) and an unsewn, 100% cotton, wheel. The compound I use is made for buffing plastics and I find it works well with film finishes. It reduces the risk of burning through the film finish compared to using white diamond. When buffing plastics, or a film finish, I stop after this step. I don’t see any benefit of buffing a coat of wax on top of these materials. YMMV. However, if I were to use wax, I’d use an unsewn flannel wheel.

HTH

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I use fluffy un-sewn cotton and Menzerna white compound.