How Do I Choose A Polishing Wheel?

How Do I Choose A polishing Wheel?

A polishing wheel has many functions. For metals, it can remove scratches, marks, rusts, burrs, paints, also can staining finish, polishing and buffing. For wooden products, it can remove scratches and enhance luster. For plastic, it can remove the scratches and brighten the surface. Choose a suitable polishing wheel can improve your work efficiency and enhance the polishing quality. Here, we will study how to choose an applicable polishing wheel for your work.

We will consider the following factors:
#1 Material to be polished
We may meet kinds of materials in our life or in our production. And different material has different hardness and surface condition. And all material has a final surface requirement. In order to achieve the needed surface. We need adopt different machining process of polishing operation. Here we just explore the polishing.
Generally, the polishing has 3 stages, first cutting, medium polishing and final finishing.
First cutting stage: the purpose is to remove the marks, rusts, paints, spots and coarse scratches.
Second polishing stage: the purpose is to remove the slight scratches and prepare the surface for final finishing.
Final finishing stage: the purpose is get a bright mirror surface.
Below is a table for choosing the suitable polishing wheel for different material in different polishing stage.

#2 The purpose you want to achieve
If your purpose is to get a mirror finishing or just remove, clean something on the surface, you can per the above table to choose the polishing wheel.
If your purpose is grinding and cleaning the surface, you can use abrasive flap wheel, nylon grinding wheel, non-woven polishing wheel and wire brush wheel.
If your purpose to get a satin finishing, you can use non-woven flap wheel drums, non-woven polishing wheel, sisal drums.

#3 The dimensional matching between the polishing wheel and the workpiece
The general principle is the large size polishing wheel used for polishing the workpieces with a larger area. And the small size polishing wheel used for polishing small workpieces.

Some workpiece with special conditions, you need use some special-shaped polishing wheel to polish it. Such as, use mounted cylinder polishing wheel to polish the inner hole. These special-shaped polishing wheel also include mounted mushroom polishing wheel, mounted goblet polishing wheel and mounted T-shape polishing wheel. The materials can be sisal, cotton or non-woven cloth.

#4 The polishing equipment you have
We need according to the polishing equipment in hand to choose the right size of polishing wheel. The most used polishing equipment includes, drills, angle grinders, bench grinders.
Drills have 2 ways to use polishing wheel.
One is direct use the mounted polishing wheel. The mounted polishing wheel with a 1/4” shank, you can fix it on drills directly. This kind polishing wheel includes mounted cotton buffing wheel, mounted sisal buffing wheel, mounted non-woven polishing wheel, mounted felt wheels etc.
The second way is you must use a tapered drill spindle. Fix the taper spindle on the drill first, then fix the polishing wheel on the taper spindle, then you can start your polishing work. Use this way, the polishing wheel don’t have a shank, just have a small hole in the wheel’s center. This type polishing wheel includes sisal polishing wheel, cotton polishing wheel, flannel polishing wheel, felt buffing wheel, nylon grinding wheel. The size used on drills is 2” to 5”.
Angle grinders also have 2 ways to use polishing wheel.
First is use an angle grinder spindle adapter or angle grinder extension rod. The taper spindle and extension rod fix on angle grinder first, then the polishing wheel fix on the spindle and extension rod. Then you can start your polishing work. Use this way, the polishing wheel can be sisal buffing pad, cotton buffing pad, denim buffing pad, nylon grinding wheel and non-woven polishing wheel. The wheels inner hole can be pin-hole, 10mm, 1/2” or 5/8”. The wheel’s size is 6” to 10”.
The second way is use with safety aluminum flange together. The safety aluminum flange has 2 size, M14 and 5/8-11UNC. This size is matching the arbor size of angle grinder. Use this way, the polishing wheel is an airway buffing wheel. The wheel with 3” steel center. Available size 8” to 12”. Available colour, blue, orange, yellow and natural white.

Bench grinder also has 2 ways to use polishing wheel.

One is fixing the buffing wheel on the bench grinder’s shaft directly. This way the polishing wheel with a 3/8”, 1/2”, 5/8” or 3/4” arbor hole. The second way is used a bench grinder spindle adapter. The size of the bench grinder spindle adapter has 10mm, 1/2”, M12, 5/8”, M16. This way the polishing wheel with a pin-hole or 10mm inner hole. The size used on bench grinder is 3”-12”.

The sisal and cotton polishing wheel need use with polishing compound together. Different material, polishing wheel and polishing stage need use with different polishing compound. How to choose the suitable polishing compound, please refer to our polishing compound color chart.

Polishing Tips:
1. Use compounds sparingly, black grease marks will appear on the workpiece if too much compound has been applied to the buffs. Remember little and often.
2. If it is possible, polish across marks and scratches not along them.
3. Use a different buff for each compound.
4. Do not mix different compounds on the same buff, clean the buff off with a wire brush or buff rake before applying a different compound.
5. Attach the tapered mandrel to your drill, or angle grinder adapter to your angle grinder/polisher or bench grinder spindle adapter to your bench grinder and fix tightly.
6. Try to constantly vary the directions of which you polish. This is not always possible but recommended as some articles may be of an unsuitable size and shape.
7. If you are polishing small articles then you can fix your drill into a vice, this will enable you to polish these small articles with ease.
8. Sometimes when you have polished you may see a slight coat of black grease or finger marks on the workpiece, these can be removed with the microfibre cloth.
9. Protect polished articles with a good wax polish.
10. If you wish to electroplate or lacquer to the polished article, make sure you use an as good degreaser and do not protect with a wax polish. Any dirt or grease or wax will interfere with the adhesion of the plated metal or lacquer.