Buffing wheels and their compounds. Something not right.

[L98-Z]

I got my buffing stuff in today. A 1.5 Horsepower buffer spins at 3000+ rpm. I bought a couple of 6 inch wheels from here. So I put my 6 inch Spiral Sewn wheel on, and use it for brown compound. I attach a loose buffing wheel and use it for white. I take a billet alum valve cover that has seen it's better days and begin with the brown. It works pretty good, takes awhile for some reason, but finally start seeing it getting shiner and shiner and some light scratches. Clean with aceton to remove all compounds, follow through with white compound. Comes out pretty shiny. I'm happy enough with it until further practice.

So, I did one side of the valve cover like this, I then try the other side. This time the brown can't even touch it. No scratches, no differences or anything. White compound can do some difference, but the brown is useless. It won't phase it.

What happened?

[L98-Z]

Also. I put the compounds on every 1-2 minutes or so. Raked every 3 times of compound. So 3-6 minutes.

[CamaroMike]

Did you do any prep work to the valve cover? I like to use a da sander with sanding paper and die grinder with sanding rolls to prep the rough casting. I basically smooth everything out and then use the polishing wheels, its a whole lot eaiser to polish once the part has been sanded. Do you have any sisal wheels with black grease? They can get rid of rough casting better that sewn cloth wheels can. The process I usually use after I have prepped a part is to go over every possible inch of the part with the sisal wheel with the black grease. Once it has a dull shine I then use the sewn cotton wheel with the brown tripoli grease and go over it until its looking reall shiny and scratch less. If you get any gas"air pockets in the metal" I would try your best to get it to shine and then use a 6" loose buffing wheel with the white grease to finish it off.

[L98-Z]

It's a billet alum valve cover that was originally purchased polished. I was going over it to help bring the shine out. The weird thing is, it didn't even make any marks or anything to the valve cover.

Also, is there a reason on why the brown compound doesn't cut into as easily as the white compound. I can take the loose wheel and put it on the white, and it eats right into it. Maybe applying too much pressure?

[CamaroMike]

How many wheels do you have stacked together? One,two,three,ect? For something like a valve cover I like to beable to make one pass and get everything. How hard are you pressing the valvecover against the wheel? You may wanna try going a little harder with the sewn cloth wheels.

[L98-Z]

I'm only using one wheel. I'm just playing around seeing what I can figure out. I wasn't pressing very hard though, so maybe need to try that as well, but I think the compound wasn't loading onto the wheel. I tried again today and had better results. I'll play with it again when it gets a little warmer.

[swh]

This message is for all those that have problems getting the scratches out of aluminum or any metal that you want to polish. The grease compounds sold on this sight and others are fine grit. I found an automotive restoring web sight that sells "Greaseless Compounds" that are heaver grit 80, 120, 180, 320 that will remove the initial scratches, and then through progressively finer grit stages you can get to the grease compounds for the final finish. Hope this helps.

Edit: Caswell sells greaseless compound at http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/buffing.htm

[mpierich]

Originally Posted by L98-Z

I got my buffing stuff in today. A 1.5 Horsepower buffer spins at 3000+ rpm. I bought a couple of 6 inch wheels from here. So I put my 6 inch Spiral Sewn wheel on, and use it for brown compound. I attach a loose buffing wheel and use it for white. I take a billet alum valve cover that has seen it's better days and begin with the brown. It works pretty good, takes awhile for some reason, but finally start seeing it getting shiner and shiner and some light scratches. Clean with aceton to remove all compounds, follow through with white compound. Comes out pretty shiny. I'm happy enough with it until further practice.

So, I did one side of the valve cover like this, I then try the other side. This time the brown can't even touch it. No scratches, no differences or anything. White compound can do some difference, but the brown is useless. It won't phase it.

What happened?

That's a wierd one. Only thing I can think of is...was there ever any clearcoat etc. on it? Maybe one side has more than the first did. Or, are you raking your wheels regularly? If not maybe the wheels got loaded up after you did the first side.

Also, try black/spiral then white/spiral/loose. Sometimes the tripoli (brown) doesn't work so good.