Buffing your plastic and bakelite...

[jdinstl]

For those of you who enjoy doing your own restore work, I'd like to point you to a site that has been instrumental in my own work. My main collection is vacuum cleaners. I love doing the polishing and buffing on the aluminum jobs. I have had great experiences with the products from these folks. In fact, I also ordered and received the cobalt plating kit, and am going to be digging into that soon.

Recently, I got a string wheel and "Plastic-Glo" from Caswell, Inc. and buffed out a plastic Kirby Emptor Base (pics below).

If you click the link, and scroll down, there's a kit. That's what I ordered. I figured it was worth a try.

The pic below is with the string buff mounted on the buffer, and the Emptor base after a light sanding, but before buffing:

http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/stringbuffs.html

 

[jdinstl]

After buffing and plastic-glo

Here's the result:

 

[jetcone]

Wow thank you John!

I bought a buffer last year but its a 3600 rpm for chrome but baldor said you need an 1800 rpm buffer for plastic so you don't melt it. I think this string product will work on my buffer now.

 

[jdinstl]

Jon...

...the buff job you see above was done on a 3600 rpm buffer. The string buff and plastic-glo will give you the same results!

Enjoy!

John

 

[redcarpetdrew]

Would this work on the black agitators like those in Maytag wringers?

RCD

 

[jdinstl]

RCD...

...that thread about maytags and the wringers, using coatings 'n such is what got me to posting about it. I'm pretty sure it would work, although I don't have a Maytag agitator to find out

But I played with a number of different plastics and bakelite, and they all came out looking good. The key is to wet sand to an even sheen, using 400 and 600 grit wet sandpaper. Then clean the item, making sure it's squeaky clean. Then buff with the plastic-glo and string buffer.

This kit is also used to bring yellowed and hazed automotive headlight lenses back to clear brilliance. So I'm thinking for aged translucent panels on washers and dryers, this might be the ticket.

John

 

[sudsmaster]

I suppose it would depend on how worn the Bakelite is.

Bakelite is a mix of a phenolic resin and a filler, usually something like wood dust. The shiny surface is not very thick and once it's worn away, no amount of polishing will restore the original finish - you're just polishing sawdust...

Some people here have had success using a clear enamel top coat to restore gloss to worn bakelite agitators. I used it on my '65 RCA washer agitator and the results were generally good, although I got a bit carried away and there are some runs in it, nothing glaring though. I used the Rustoleum product.

 

[jdinstl]

Hmmm....

Well...for what it's worth, I pulled the bakelite base off my percolator...

Here's the before shot:

 

[jdinstl]

Then...

...using the string buff and plastic-glo

 

[jdinstl]

A bit closer up...

...your thoughts?

 

[jdinstl]

Argh...same size...really.

...sorry 'bout that...overwrote the after pic after cropping.

Anyway...your call

 

[sudsmaster]

Obviously the handle wasn't worn through to the filler.

Looks good!

 

[jdinstl]

Ah, gotcha...

...I'm learning a bit about bakelite here, obviously.

Rich, thanks for jumping in and speaking up...because, it reminded me of something.

Not only bakelite, but any cast material, such as aluminum (like the vacs I work with) you have to make a judgment call. How far to go with sanding, polishing, and buffing. If you go too far, what looks like pits will show up. It's actually tiny old air bubbles from the original casting of the part. And when you've hit this level in the material, there's really no working them out, as you'll just bring more to the surface.

All these operations are a small removal of material, be it bakelite, aluminum, plastic, what have you. Buffing is a form of sanding, really -- using a very very small grit embedded onto a wheel, or in this case, strings.

Cheers,

John