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Sounds like grit in the wheel to me.

You're sure the scratch wasn't there but hidden before? Sounds like you are pressing pretty hard and doing a LOT of buffing if you are revealing differentials in hardness between wood and rubber.

caskwith wrote:Sounds like grit in the wheel to me.

It had to be, but why only one scratch? Wouldn't it come around again and just mar the whole pipe? Then there's how did it get there? Why didn't it scratch up the rest of the stem that I buffed before the saddle? No issues with the last pipe I buffed and I'm certainly not laying the wheel in a bed of gravel between buffing sessions.

What would you suggest to get grit out of the wheel?

Sasquatch wrote:You're sure the scratch wasn't there but hidden before?

If it was hidden, it was hidden well. It's deeper than a pass with 60 grit. I spent about 10 minutes sanding the saddle and shank with 150 and the scratch is still visible. Almost gone, but still there.

Sasquatch wrote:Sounds like you are pressing pretty hard and doing a LOT of buffing if you are revealing differentials in hardness between wood and rubber.

I had a sneaky suspicion here. So... should I buff longer with less pressure to get the scratches from 600 out of the saddle? I'm loading up the tripoli wheel heavily to get those scratches out fast. Is this also a mistake?

Note: sorry for all the edits. After I submitted and a few times after, I realized that the post needed to be reorganized to make the most sense.

caskwith wrote:Hmmm maybe buffing for my next video.

Chris, you wouldn't just help me with a video like that, but boy would I love to see it!

If you have sanded properly to 600, it should take about 10 seconds of wheel time to get shiny. Think on that. Sounds to me like your piece is not really ready for the wheel in some way. I sand to 400, hit the brown trip, and the thing glows if and only if I've sanded really well at 150, 220, 320.

More time at the wheel isn't a mistake - would you rather sand or buff? But there's a danger with the lack of control on the wheel - with sandpaper, you go slow and have good shaping control.

Sasquatch wrote:If you have sanded properly to 600, it should take about 10 seconds of wheel time to get shiny. Think on that. Sounds to me like your piece is not really ready for the wheel in some way.

When I approach the wheel, all it takes is a tap to become a little shiny. What I'm doing now is approaching the buffing of the stem in the same way I've approached sanding: ensuring that all the scratches are out from the previous grit.

The scratches on the stem are parallel to the sides of the stem when I start, perpendicular when I finish with brown trip. This leaves the stem incredibly shiny. Am I just spending too much time on brown trip around the stem/shank transition?

I took a different approach this evening and had significantly better results. Using much less pressure and spending more time, I was able to get the scratches out from 600 (I sanded again to get the transition closer to smooth) without compromising the transition. It's not as smooth as it was before yesterday, but the improvement is significant and I was able to get a nice and shiny saddle.

Thanks for your help, guys. I don't think I've got buffing figured out yet, but I'm slowly getting there.

All this shit just takes practice, and more specifically, practice on your equipment with your materials.

I mean some grit has got in there, it can fly around around scratch your stem and then be flung out of the wheel or work its way deeper into the wheel and come back out another time, small bits of hard grit can be a bugger and a mystery. Also as Sas says from your other descriptions you may be buffing too hard. It's hard to say really withouth personally watching you buffing etc.