Brian,
I am in full agreement, there really is nothing more satisfying than polishing metal to a high finish - especially by hand IMHO.
This reminds me of a couple of stories I tell from time to time about the old-fashioned art or craft of metal-working and polishing. The type of art that was part of the bicycle frame and part manufacturing business of the past and which is being kept alive by you, Kirk, Richard, and others today.
There is a chap I know in my home town of Kingston, ON, who was the tool maker at one of the local hospitals. Jim came from northern England. He is now in his late-70s, retired, and in poor health. However, when his workshop in the hospital was in full swing it was a real treat to visit. He could turn his hand to anything - replacement parts of the highest precision for the hospital, model steam-engines, and even beautiful replacement worm-and-gear bass-pegs for my father's double-bass. I remember Jim telling me that part of his apprenticeship in Bradford (I believe), required taking a block of unpolished brass and with nothing but a single metal file polishing it to a mirror finish on all sides. In those days the instructors in those shops were real bastards and took great delight in taking an apprentice down a peg or two. They would therefore inspect the work, comment on its quality, then take a scribe out of their pocket and deeply gouge the whole surface - telling the apprentice "not bad lad, start over." Much of a day's work gone in a matter of seconds. Jim never ever forgot those days and remains to this day a perfectionist of the highest order - still with a home workshop in which he builds his model steam-engines and steam-rollers (all scales).
A similar thing happened to my father while in medical school in Sheffield. As students in the early-50s, they were all required to learn how to sharpen the old-style solid scalpels. They would spend an hour or more honing a fine edge on the scalpel on a series of stones only to have their instructor come by check the edge, blunt it on the edge of the stone and tell them to try again. Needless to say, the old man can sharpen the carving fork for Sunday dinner to a surgical edge!
Keep that art going.
Paul Williams, Ottawa, On, Canada
brianbaylis@juno.com wrote:
>
>Ray,
>
>I'm upstairs here taking a break from spending most of the day polishing the lugs and whatnot on yet ANOTHER in a non-ending line-up of Cinellis. Ray is absolutely right about reversing the process. Actually, most of what I polish is done while the part is being held in my vice somehow. The methods I use to do this are very creative. There is an artform in just inventing ways to hold small awkward parts during polishing. Most of the polishing process is actually done by hand sanding with emory cloth, with or without oil. Only the final one or two steps involve the spinning of the buff. Different metals react differently and require various steps and can also sometimes involve Scotchbright or other wheels, but these generally do not "grab" the work. More care must be taken to not slip off the work or "follow the wheel around a corner", thus rounding something that you would prefer to leave sharp and square.
>
>I only do a few things on the buffing wheel actually, things that are easily and safely accessed; and still extreme care and concentration are required. It's not funny what can happen at the buffing wheel. Traditionally buffing knives is done on the wheel which can be rather dangerous; but I just realized that I should probably switch methods while knifemaking also. Timing is good for the revelation; I just started my first little knife project in about 20 years.
>
>My observation about polishing things. There is something very special and deeply satisfying about making something out of raw steel or other metal and ending up the process by giving it a mirror polish. It may just be a guy thing (unlike the ladies who seem to go for the shiny rocks instead), but bright shiny metal really blows my dress up. Like the ultimate guy thing, the chrome donut (a project of mine that is NOT dead, just in a holding pattern) it's just cool. I like showing people stuff I just polished for plating and say "nice chrome, huh" as they see their distorted face looking back at them from the surface of the lug. Then I crack up as I tell them it hasn't been plated yet. "Really" they say. Yep, most people have never seen what you have to do to get something ready for plating. Anyway, it's a little dangerous at times, but also very exciting.
>
>Brian Baylis
>La Mesa, CA
>Man, this typing sure feels good on my fingers compared to what I have to go back to now.
>
>
>-- wheelman@nac.net wrote:
>One way to make this situation safer is to reverse the process. Spinning
>cloth wheels can rip things from your hands no matter how tight you think
>you are holding on. Instead clamp the item to be polished (protecting it
>from the clamp of course) then get a hand held buffing wheel and go at it.
>Also there is a little hand held device that looks just like a small vise.
>It holds your smaller work firmly, keeps your hands from getting burned or
>worse.
>Now all I want is a tool to find those small parts I drop on the floor
>that somehow leave the planet.
>
>Ray Homiski
>Elizabeth, NJ