Polishing Brass At Home! (GIF heavy)

I made a little brass nut for a bass guitar I'm refinishing (it goes where the head meets the neck and the old one was plastic) and for the final step I'm going to polish it!

Just so yall know, I'm pretty much making this up as I go. Make sure you have the right gear to protect yourself from those deadly power tools!

So this is the infamous before shot. I took an old brass drift and hacked off the right size chunk of brass then I just hand filed it down to spec. I used sand paper to remove the tool marks and went finer and finer until it got a relatively smooth satin finish. I think I finished on 300grit.

My father sent me (in the mail across the country wtf thanks dad!!) a mid-grade drill press. Until I can get my hands on some decent bits to finish up some knives I need to make handles for, I've been using it to polish stuff!

So the first step is to go out to Harbor Freight and get you a buffin' wheel and slap that bitch up in the chuck. Snugly.

Turn the press on to a pretty high speed and apply white jewelers rouge. What's that shit, you ask? It's pretty much a block (or cylinder depending on what kind ya buy) of abrasive wax. The white rouge is great for soft metals like brass and aluminum. There's many different kinds.

So run the press up to speed and gently press the rouge on the buffin' wheel until it kinda melts into it JUST A LITTLE. A little bit of this stuff goes a long way. The rule of thumb is to apply rouge as you're working "little and often" to keep your work from gumming up and to extend the life of your buffin' wheels.

Now you polish! Take your working piece and firmly press it against the wheel while jugglin' it around like you're a virgin preteen who's trying to figure out how to play with a girls nipple for the first time. You'll get it eventually, but by the time you do it will be too late and the whole school already has some terrible nicknames for you like "Lenny the retarded virgin" and "Lenny you fucking retard just go home no one likes you here."

You want to be sure to hold the piece in such a way that if it gets caught and flings out of your hands it will shoot AWAY from your face. Important stuff.

Inspect as you go, and if you notice the finish start to diminish (eeyyy see what I did there?) apply a little bit more rouge. JUST A LITTLE DAMN IT.

Post polish; pre buff!

The rouge will leave behind a little grime so I'd recommend taking some mineral spirits (or some other similar solvent) and thoroughly cleaning the part. I keep a little container of it to soak dirty metal stuff I'm working on in. Pretty handy.

Should I be wearing gloves? Probly.

Now replace that nasty wheel with a fresh one. When you use that old wheel again, keep in mind what kind of rouge you used on it and make sure you only use that stuff on THAT wheel. Or you're gunna have a bad time.

Now buff! Same idea as before, just less gunk.

I didn't wear gloves this time because I'm using significantly less pressure so there's less heat and a much smaller chance the part will go flying. Also I'm an adult.

Please don't tell my wife.

And done. Ready to go on that guitar! Once I finish the rest of it...

Something to consider, that drill press is not really made for lateral force and I'm pretty sure I'm not doing the thing any favors by using it the way I am. Since I've started using it like this I've noticed a little wobble at high speeds. So proceed with caution. I really wanna buy a bench grinder to do this with but OH WELL.

@michealangleo

Wilson tax is a thing!

Thanks for reading :) if you want to see more, stay tuned. I have an old brass lock that once I pick open I'll be cleaning up. Should turn out nice.