Either someone slipped something in my drink or I just got an extra kick of motivation today… Started working on these pipes 8AM today and just finished at 10PM.. craziest day I’ve had so far! Now proper photos and then 
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Nice work! How are you getting that luster with the polish?
I have been using a mixture of carnauba wax and mineral oil that's intended for treating wooden cutting blocks. I've tried hand buffing with a polishing cloth and using a 1" loose-fiber buffing wheel on a dremel. Neither one gets that kind of shine -- only while it's still wet (the mixture is liquid form with chunks of wax in it). I've also tried melting beeswax and buffing it with both methods. No dice. Once I wipe the excess off the shine fades a lot.
What's the trick here? I'd like to have that hard coated, crystal clear shine. Am I going to have to fork over the money for a bench mounted buffing wheel and some special concoction or something?
I have been using a mixture of carnauba wax and mineral oil that's intended for treating wooden cutting blocks. I've tried hand buffing with a polishing cloth and using a 1" loose-fiber buffing wheel on a dremel. Neither one gets that kind of shine -- only while it's still wet (the mixture is liquid form with chunks of wax in it). I've also tried melting beeswax and buffing it with both methods. No dice. Once I wipe the excess off the shine fades a lot.
What's the trick here? I'd like to have that hard coated, crystal clear shine. Am I going to have to fork over the money for a bench mounted buffing wheel and some special concoction or something?
Well, I've been experimenting a lot with machines, pastes, waxes and techniques. Right now my setup is far from optimal but the results are there and here is what works for me.
1. Depending on the surface condition I would start sanding with either 400 or 600 sandpaper and finish with 1000. I don't use sandpaper for wood, but one for car paint. This was big game changer for me and makes everything so much easier.
2. I first started with micro-mesh, then upgraded to a small buffing wheel and finally got myself an old second hand grinding wheel from ebay for around 40 euros, which was converted to a buffing wheel and came 2 dirty blocks of old polishing paste. Big softish cotton wheels , but the problem is that it is very powerful and the rpms are not variable - it always spins at 2850 rpms. This is a giant pain and I have to adjust the pressure constantly...
3. Polishing pastes - when I got the first polishing wheel I was recommended 4 different pastes(pre polish, polish, shine and extra shine) and thats what I did for the longest time. At some point I bought a random cheap beginner kit with two small polishing pastes and a small felt wheel - the pre polish paste looked very different from mine, being brown and very oily. I tried it and it worked way better than what I had so far and it also allowed me to cut buffing down to only two pastes, the cheap brown one and either the shine or the extra shine. Did that for the longest time until I almost ran out of the brown stuff and this is when I decided to try the old dirty blocks, I got with the big wheel and oh my god were they a game changer in combination with the sandpaper. They are quite oily and soft, but now I only do one very short round on the wheel, while putting a bit more pressure and it gets me 95% of the final shine. I have no idea what brand they are and the person who sold them to me wasn't that big of a help... will update when I find them.
4. Carnauba wax - I had such a hard time learning how to get good results with it... I had issues with my machine, wheel and technique. I watched every single video on YouTube and what people would show is putting a ton of wax on the pipe and then buffing it to distribute, but every time I tried that it would dull out my shine, instead of enhancing it... Now I use a very hard wax block on my smaller machine with stiff cotton wheel that I have soften the top layer of with sandpaper and random sharp metal objects I had handy- the final result being a small stiff wheel with a thin fuzzy layer on top. I would apply some wax on almost max speed and then go down to the absolute minimum, then I will run the pipe through for less then a minute while almost not applying any pressure and maybe going twice over everything. This leaves a healthy layer of wax without any fussing around leaving streaks and trying to spread them.
5. Stems - I basically do the same with them, but I skip the wax and I use the other dirty block, this time blue in stead of puke yellow, because it's not that oily. Again after I am done with the 1000 sandpaper, one short round of buffing and done.
1. Depending on the surface condition I would start sanding with either 400 or 600 sandpaper and finish with 1000. I don't use sandpaper for wood, but one for car paint. This was big game changer for me and makes everything so much easier.
2. I first started with micro-mesh, then upgraded to a small buffing wheel and finally got myself an old second hand grinding wheel from ebay for around 40 euros, which was converted to a buffing wheel and came 2 dirty blocks of old polishing paste. Big softish cotton wheels , but the problem is that it is very powerful and the rpms are not variable - it always spins at 2850 rpms. This is a giant pain and I have to adjust the pressure constantly...
3. Polishing pastes - when I got the first polishing wheel I was recommended 4 different pastes(pre polish, polish, shine and extra shine) and thats what I did for the longest time. At some point I bought a random cheap beginner kit with two small polishing pastes and a small felt wheel - the pre polish paste looked very different from mine, being brown and very oily. I tried it and it worked way better than what I had so far and it also allowed me to cut buffing down to only two pastes, the cheap brown one and either the shine or the extra shine. Did that for the longest time until I almost ran out of the brown stuff and this is when I decided to try the old dirty blocks, I got with the big wheel and oh my god were they a game changer in combination with the sandpaper. They are quite oily and soft, but now I only do one very short round on the wheel, while putting a bit more pressure and it gets me 95% of the final shine. I have no idea what brand they are and the person who sold them to me wasn't that big of a help... will update when I find them.
4. Carnauba wax - I had such a hard time learning how to get good results with it... I had issues with my machine, wheel and technique. I watched every single video on YouTube and what people would show is putting a ton of wax on the pipe and then buffing it to distribute, but every time I tried that it would dull out my shine, instead of enhancing it... Now I use a very hard wax block on my smaller machine with stiff cotton wheel that I have soften the top layer of with sandpaper and random sharp metal objects I had handy- the final result being a small stiff wheel with a thin fuzzy layer on top. I would apply some wax on almost max speed and then go down to the absolute minimum, then I will run the pipe through for less then a minute while almost not applying any pressure and maybe going twice over everything. This leaves a healthy layer of wax without any fussing around leaving streaks and trying to spread them.
5. Stems - I basically do the same with them, but I skip the wax and I use the other dirty block, this time blue in stead of puke yellow, because it's not that oily. Again after I am done with the 1000 sandpaper, one short round of buffing and done.
Well, I've been experimenting a lot with machines, pastes, waxes and techniques. Right now my setup is far from optimal but the results are there and here is what works for me.
1. Depending on the surface condition I would start sanding with either 400 or 600 sandpaper and finish with 1000. I don't use sandpaper for wood, but one for car paint. This was big game changer for me and makes everything so much easier.
2. I first started with micro-mesh, then upgraded to a small buffing wheel and finally got myself an old second hand grinding wheel from ebay for around 40 euros, which was converted to a buffing wheel and came 2 dirty blocks of old polishing paste. Big softish cotton wheels , but the problem is that it is very powerful and the rpms are not variable - it always spins at 2850 rpms. This is a giant pain and I have to adjust the pressure constantly...
3. Polishing pastes - when I got the first polishing wheel I was recommended 4 different pastes(pre polish, polish, shine and extra shine) and thats what I did for the longest time. At some point I bought a random cheap beginner kit with two small polishing pastes and a small felt wheel - the pre polish paste looked very different from mine, being brown and very oily. I tried it and it worked way better than what I had so far and it also allowed me to cut buffing down to only two pastes, the cheap brown one and either the shine or the extra shine. Did that for the longest time until I almost ran out of the brown stuff and this is when I decided to try the old dirty blocks, I got with the big wheel and oh my god were they a game changer in combination with the sandpaper. They are quite oily and soft, but now I only do one very short round on the wheel, while putting a bit more pressure and it gets me 95% of the final shine. I have no idea what brand they are and the person who sold them to me wasn't that big of a help... will update when I find them.
4. Carnauba wax - I had such a hard time learning how to get good results with it... I had issues with my machine, wheel and technique. I watched every single video on YouTube and what people would show is putting a ton of wax on the pipe and then buffing it to distribute, but every time I tried that it would dull out my shine, instead of enhancing it... Now I use a very hard wax block on my smaller machine with stiff cotton wheel that I have soften the top layer of with sandpaper and random sharp metal objects I had handy- the final result being a small stiff wheel with a thin fuzzy layer on top. I would apply some wax on almost max speed and then go down to the absolute minimum, then I will run the pipe through for less then a minute while almost not applying any pressure and maybe going twice over everything. This leaves a healthy layer of wax without any fussing around leaving streaks and trying to spread them.
5. Stems - I basically do the same with them, but I skip the wax and I use the other dirty block, this time blue in stead of puke yellow, because it's not that oily. Again after I am done with the 1000 sandpaper, one short round of buffing and done.
Wow! You could go into business. I'm sure they are all worth more now than before. Beautiful work!