eurekastar
Well-known member
Polishing a Kirby
I made a lot of mistakes learning to polish and still have a lot to learn. For instance, I had to learn that there is no substitute for the polish that Kirby sells to its distributors. Second, one my of early mistakes was not being careful about never mixing different compounds on the same wheel. I think that's especially true for the color finish. It makes complete sense to me now, but it didn't at first. Another thing I'm learning is to do the color finish one day and then inspecting it the next day. I think sometimes I've worked so long on something that I get a little "blind" to what it needs to look like. By looking at it the next day, I can easily see areas that need work. I've also used polishing wheels and bits for my drill, but the results haven't very good. So I will still resort the good old fashioned steel wool during the cutting polish in order to get to some awkward spots. A friend also shared a technique of using sand paper to sand out heavy scratches before going to the polishing wheel. I haven't done it yet, but he begins with a coarse grit, then wet sands with successively finer grits, until he ends up with a very fine grit. Then he takes it the wheel. But he warns about not sanding too much that the metal is compromised.
I made a lot of mistakes learning to polish and still have a lot to learn. For instance, I had to learn that there is no substitute for the polish that Kirby sells to its distributors. Second, one my of early mistakes was not being careful about never mixing different compounds on the same wheel. I think that's especially true for the color finish. It makes complete sense to me now, but it didn't at first. Another thing I'm learning is to do the color finish one day and then inspecting it the next day. I think sometimes I've worked so long on something that I get a little "blind" to what it needs to look like. By looking at it the next day, I can easily see areas that need work. I've also used polishing wheels and bits for my drill, but the results haven't very good. So I will still resort the good old fashioned steel wool during the cutting polish in order to get to some awkward spots. A friend also shared a technique of using sand paper to sand out heavy scratches before going to the polishing wheel. I haven't done it yet, but he begins with a coarse grit, then wet sands with successively finer grits, until he ends up with a very fine grit. Then he takes it the wheel. But he warns about not sanding too much that the metal is compromised.
