Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm excited. I just did my first "shiny", back only, on my hop hornbeam/lignum vitae uke
Target EM6000: after 7 days, level 1000 abranet, wet sand 1500 abralon, 2000 abralon, 4000 abralon
fine menzerna sur-buff, intensive polish sur-buff.
because it's a uke (before I do my guitar) I'm going to do the side with the orbital too with a thick soft cushion.
Does anyone use a 5" r/o for this part of the finishing? Any advice appreciated

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Mike McNerney

I use a 5" orbital with a buffing bonnet to buff out instruments, but I make it a point to stay away from any edges. This would be hard to do on the sides of a uke, so I would recommend you not do it. When the buff overlaps an edge it can burn the finish off pretty quickly, at least that has been my experience. A more skillful operator may have better luck, but I would rather hand buff edges than risk burn throughs.

while I hear the worry about burning through I just don't feel it...

by that I mean a RO sander being used for buffing is pretty darned tame when compared to an actual buffer that doesn't have the RO action (and that will burn through fairly easily and actually part of the art of using one is to be aware you can actually heat up the finish a bit and get things to flow a bit and aid in the polishing process).

I used an RO as a polisher on the first project I ever sprayed (a commercial wet bar), and it took forever...it's twin sister got polished using a real buffer and went very quickly in comparison.