Buffing

[scott63]

So I had a little free time this afternoon and thought to myself, I should try out that polish o ray. Great idea, mixed results. So first off I try to apply it to a couple new wheels like you would apply rouge. I've used rouge to polish knife blades with no prob. But this stuff would not go onto the wheels.

So I thought I would microwave it to get it into more of a paste and then apply it evenly to the wheels. Great, that worked pretty good. After giving it some time to set up pretty hard I started in on a garden stake barrel for practice.

It immediately became apparent that safety glasses alone would be completely inadequate due to the numerous high velocity projectiles hitting my face, quite painfully I might add. So on goes the full face shield and I'm off and running.

Next thing I realize is that this is not going to be as easy as knives. I was using 400 grit and it seems very difficult to get an even polish, especially over a long length of barrel. It did remove the old bluing quickly and was fairly quick at bringing out a higher polish than the military finish, but it's difficult to achieve the even polish I was expecting. I'm thinking that part will get easier with practice.

However, I have three questions. 1. What is the easiest way to get the polish onto the wheel? 2. How much do you apply? 3. Do you wait for it to harden completely and use a piece of scrap metal to make a couple passes? Thanks for your help......................Scott

[fritz]

I've never had any problems with fresh Polish-O-Ray. Fresh is the word. If the stuff is not kept in the fridge down here in the heat, it will turn harder than a banker"s heart.

 

I just push the tube onto the turning wheel, and let the wheel slow down or stop. Then repeat until the cloth wheel is coated. I use 160 grit to remove old bluing and rust. Another wheel has a finer grit for finishing.

 

If you want to get fancy, you can have more wheels, each loaded with a progressively finer grit. That's what the pros do. For most of my rifles I use a matte finish, and stop before the steel gets too polished. The main thing I want to do is get the old bluing off.

 

A hot summer can ruin Polish-O-Ray, in fact Brownell's had a bunch of it go bad a few years back. It seems that it got hot in Iowa too.

 

fritz

[scott63]

Thanks fritz, I'm thinking this will be a trial and error thing and bead blasting and bluing is looking better and better...........Scott