Home made buffing system.

[GLENN THOMAS]

Just thought I would share this in case anyone might be interested. This is a home made buffing system I made from a piece of 1/2 inch all thread 24 inches long and a few 6 in buffing wheels from Harborfreight. The pictures below should be all you need to see how I put it together. I used 2 nuts on each side of each wheel to they could tighten up against each other and not spin down the all thread as the lathe was running. I already had the 1/2 inch Jacobs chuck and the live center which I took the point out of. All in all the whole thing including the small kit and Tripoli in the pics was somewhere around 30 bucks. I think the Beal system is around $90. Even if i had to buy the Jacobs chuck and the live center it would still cost less than half the Beal system. The all thread isn't perfectly straight and vibrates a little around 1800 RPM, other than that it works great. I wouldn't recomed anything longer that 2 feet of 1/2" just because it bight bow and vibrate even more. You could probably fit 4 buffing wheels and still have plenty of room to work.

[John Keeton]

Looks like a pretty good home-made solution to me!! I still don't have a buffing setup, and I really need to do something. Do you think going to 5/8" would stiffen it a bit?

[Steve Schlumpf]

Looks like it will work really nice Glenn!

I know everyone buffs at different speeds but I buff at around 700 to 1000 rpm and find the slower speeds work just as well and I don't burn through the finish.

[Greg Just]

Glenn:

Nice looking setup. I made a similar setup with buffing wheels from Caswell Plating. Works well.

John: I would recommend the 5/8 rod if you can accomodate it. My system flexes just a bit with the 1/2 inch rod.

I agree with Steve that lower speeds work just fine and don't put too much compound on at any time - too much is not good.

[GLENN THOMAS]

John,

If I could I would go as far as 3/4". The main reason I used 1/2" is because it would fit in my jacobs chuck and the live center I had.

[John Keeton]

Thanks for the info Glenn and Greg. I will have to check my Jacobs chuck for capacity and figure out how to accomodate the tailstock end.

[Allen Neighbors]

Good thinking, Glenn. If it works for you, what else can one ask?!!

[Dolan Brown]

Looks like a very workable setup.

Other option would be to turn a piece of wood with a morse taper and expoy in the all thread instead of using the chuck and and another piece of wood for the other end to fit into the live center, then a larger diameter of all thread could be use.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Good looking system and looks like it works well.