Thread: My cut and buff experiences

It seems no matter how careful you are you will always get careless, especially when you start getting comfortable. I've been painting professionally for about 14 months and I only paint motorcycles. In the beginning I learned the hard way that buffers are serious. Even 1000rpm will throw a fender clear out of the garage and royally F your entire day. I visited a local paint shop in seek of some advice for getting a brilliant shine out of my work and caught some funny stories. Dont buff with a loose shirt.... well... Everyone gets lazy... The day the buffer grabs your shirt you just might $hit yourself. I've had my buffer launch bodywork clear off the table, grab an edge and punch me in the chest, and plenty of other close calls. Nowadays I am very cautious when it comes to the cut and buff.

After clear is cured at least 8 hours, I wetsand with 600 to cut quick, flattens out the clear quick and painless. Next step is 1200 grit, then 2000, and on small hand polish jobs 2500. I use 3M compound and a foam pad for my initial cut. I never let the surface get too hot, splash it with water. Move the buffer slowly on the lowest setting (about 1000RPM) On the second pass bump the rpm and lighten pressure. Whipe any residue off with a clean rag. For polish I use a fine foam pad and have used a few different polishes. Right now I am stuck on Excite finisher. Very non abrasive and brings out a brilliant shine to my work with virtually no swirls.

Had a cruiser painted once, completely done, airbrushed some fire on it... was buffing it out with no problems... decided to hit it one more time in a few spots and the pad hooked the gas cap lip, shot the buffer straight up and the handle hit the top of the tank, dead center... put a dime sized indention in it... 30 hours prior to delivery. So there I was at 10am stripping the tank to repaint the entire thing in under 6 hours. Buffing is a PITA

I only have one horror story about buffing, and I can't talk about it, I start to shudder LOL

I've been lucky so far but a friend of mine had real problem. He was polishing a brass antique tailight on floor mounted pedastal buffer. The buffer caught an edge yanked the very expensive light right out his hands. His natural reaction was to try to catch it. That put his loose fitting shirt right into the buffing wheel. It ripped his shirt off and before he could back up it whipped him about ten times. He was bleeding and looked like he had been caned by a pro. Power equipment can be wicked.

Man, i'm gonna be careful when I get to use a buffer...got my hair caught in a powerdrill.... which doesn't sound like much, but my hair is over a meter long....lost a good chunk of it that day...

I bought an adapter for my CP DA Sander to use for 3" buffing pads but it doesnt perform near as well as my power buffer.

Actually, I too love polishing. Getting that perfectly smooth high gloss finish is real kick.

Clothing is obviously way to dangerous for Buffing, so from here on out I will buff in the buff. Yes, Buck naked. Progress pics to follow.....

Originally Posted by OzDesigns

Clothing is obviously way to dangerous for Buffing, so from here on out I will buff in the buff. Yes, Buck naked. Progress pics to follow.....

uhm........
That's ok. I think we get the picture.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Any fast spinning tool, like a die grinder, cutoff wheel, buffer or any of those can be downright dangerous.
I had a die grinder cut off wheel come apart once while I was doing some steel fab work. It slice my t-shirt and cut the air hose completely off.
Between trying to get the air hose undone and checking myself to see where the cutoff wheel had gone through my shirt, I was a bit freaked out.