Buffer Finally Finished

[Darryl Young]

Been trying to get a buffer built for awhile now so I can buff my guitar body and neck and get the bridge glued on (bridge is a seperate thread, ha)

For the base I bought a 2'x2' piece of 7 layer plywood at Home Depot, split it in half and glued/screwed the halves together. The 7 layer plywood my local Home Depot carries is better quality than anything I've seen at Lowes so I buy my plywood there. I bought the electrical cord with plug from Lowes for roughly $5 (don't recall the exact price). The switch is an old light switch I removed from our house to use a different color.

I looked at the buffer StewMac sells and it has a 1" shaft so I thought that would be the size to go with. Turns out that it not a standard buffer shaft size. That made obtaining buffing wheels a little more of a challenge. My brother is a machinist so he found a 1" shaft 3ft long and threaded the ends of the shaft for free! Good deal!......only problem is he only threaded 3" of the shaft on each end and I needed 4 1/2" threaded. My brother lives 150 miles from me so I took it to a local shop and they added the extra threading for $30.

I bought the 1" pillar block bearings for the shaft off E-Bay for $25 icluding shipping. The pulleys also were bought off E-Bay for $23.60 including shipping. The belt is a 4L-420 which is a 4L belt that is 42" long and costs about $6. I bought a used a 1/4 HP motor that I bought off E-Bay for $25 including shipping. 1/4 HP was recommended by John Hall. The belt is loose so it will slip if you put too much pressure on the buffing wheels.

The buffing wheels were a challenge. I have the Menzerna medium and fine buffing compounds so I called Menzera to see what kind of wheels they recommend for these compounds. Jeff Silver (at Menzerna) recommended 16-ply 60/60 cotton wheels for the medium compound and 16-ply bleached domet flannel for the fine compound. I wanted to use 14" wheels as the larger size gives a little more clearance so you don't bump the body into things while buffing. Well, they stock different size buffs for 3/4" and 1 1/4" shafts, but the 1" shaft is an addball buffer shaft size. The 14" wheel was oddball as well......seems 12" with 3/4" shaft and 16" for 1 1/4" shafts are more common. Anyhow, they will custom make about any size wheel for any size shaft with no extra cost for the custom order.....but you have to wait week or two for them to mfg the wheels. After checking at Grizzly, LMI, and SteMac for their sizes and prices, I could buy the wheels cheaper at Menzerna than anywhere else so I bought from them. So (2) 14" cotton wheels + (2) 14" domet flannel wheels from Menzerna cost me $57 including shipping.

Another issue. Jeff also recommended using air-way buffs (not sure if I spelled that correctly). He claimed they ran cooler than standard buffing wheels so less likely to spoil a finish. Well, the air-way buffs are cheaper than the standard buffs (Yeah!) but the catch is they require a 6" arbor flange on either side of the wheel(s) so tightening the nut locks the material in place. Well it would cost $50 per pair to have 6" diameter custom arbor flanges made for a 1" shaft ($100 total.....yikes!). Well, after searching I found that Grizzly sells a 6" arbor but it's for a 1 1/4" shaft. So I bought these and bought a nylon flange from Allied that is 1" on the inside and 1 1/4" on the outside so it fits the shaft and arbor flange. this cost me about $36 shipped for 2 pair.

Here are some pictures. I look forward to using it. Only thing left to do is make a belt cover.

Buffer1Small.JPG

Buffer2Small.JPG

[tippie53]

that will I would put some carpet at the corners just in case you bump against it.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Darryl,
That looks great.
So add that all up and how much did it cost you?

Kevin

[Darryl Young]

$120 for the shaft, bearings, plywood, screws, motor, pulleys, belt, and nuts.
$ 59 for the 4 buffing wheels (2 cotton and 2 domet flannel)
$ 36 for the arbor flanges
$215 Total (including shipping costs)

The airway buffs are cheaper than the normal buffs but they require an arbor flange. So you could save a little by using standard buffs. At $120 this was a little cheaper than the Fox buffer without a motor.......and the shaft is longer so you have more clearance.

I just buffed the body and neck using the medium Menzerna compounds......oh wow, nice!!!

[Darryl Young]

After buffing with medium compound, what should I clean the body and neck with (to remove the medium grit) before buffing with the fine grit?
Will mineral spirits work?

Edit: I cleaned the body and neck with mineral spirits and then buffed on the other wheel with the fine compound. Wow! The finish just comes to life after buffing. Now I wish I had more experince and had done better at finishing. Ha!

[Darryl Young]

Good suggestion John.

that will I would put some carpet at the corners just in case you bump against it.

[Darryl Young]

The 1/4 HP motor is just perfect for this application. If you put more pressure than you should the buffer slows so you get instant feedback. And you can stall the wheel causing the belt to slip if you leave it loose like John suggests in other threads.