To buff or not to buff.....

[Ed McDonnell]

That is the question. When carving metal on the mill, there is a trade-off between time to carve and the quality of the finish. Taking bigger bites of the metal means fewer passes which means less time. But it also means more / bigger tool marks.

If you've cleverly designed your carving to not included a lot of sharp edges / points that you want to retain it's no big deal to cut "quickly" (quickly being a relative term here) and take care of tooling marks with buffing.

However, if you want / need points and edges you are faced with a choice. Accept tooling marks as part of the finished product or take teeny tiny bites of the metal (aka tiny stepover) and accept that you may have signficantly aged before the job is done.

I'm not one for growing old waiting for the mill to finish a job. That leaves me in the "those aren't tooling marks, that's texture baby" or "I didn't need those points / edges anyway" camp.

Here's some pictures of some brass I carved this afternoon. The first one is an overall view standing tall on a black background. The left part has been buffed to a high gloss. The right part is as it came off the mill. You should be able to see that the design has been rounded off by the buffing on the left piece. You may not be able to tell from the picture that it is very very shiny.

Here they are laying down on the job on a white background. The smoothness and shininess of the buffed piece (front if you are not sure) should be a little more obvious here. The tooling marks....err I mean texture might be more visible to you on the back piece.

This picture opens the kimono and reveals all. Only those with eagle eyes would see this level of detail without magnification.

I like both results very much. The buffed part feels silky smooth and sparkles incredibly. The non buffed part has some tooth to the feel which is interesting. It looks super crisp and the effect of the light reflecting off the facets and texture as the piece is moved is very interesting.

There is no right or wrong answer here, but which do you prefer? (If you think it's a tough call just judging from pictures, I can assure you it is even a tough call when you can hold them and move them). If you don't like either, that's ok to say as well.

Ed

 

[SteveJ]

I like the buffed one. I think it looks a bit more comfortable, if that makes any sense. That is assuming that while writing you will be feeling the ribs. Plus, it think I just like shiny metal a bit better.

 

[PenMan1]

To me, the buffed piece looks "finished". It's just a matter of preference, but I much prefer the finished look of the buffed piece.

 

[Joe S.]

That is a hard one... Both differently but equally I guess. :biggrin:

 

[plantman]

ED; Both are fantastic pieces !! As an old school woodworker, and working with the old hand tools, I like to see toolmarks in the finished product. It's always a nice feeling to run your hands over an object and be able to feel the craftsman's work. As for the buffed one, it also looks great !! I think it is more of a persomal preferance which one someone would choose. The old school tooled look or the modern slick finish. As far as the photo part of the equation is conserned, I don't think you can ever see the true beauty of an object unless you can hold it in your hand and rotate it in the light. 2D photos and not being able to run your hands over an object just don't do justice to a work of art. Jim S

 

[SteveG]

My response will vary depending on the individual item. Some pieces look great with the 'Rugged' or perhaps 'masculine' look with the milled look, while other items fit with a more refined look (so buff away!) Without any other context provided on these two items, I say they lean toward the refined category, and should be buffed.

 

[BRobbins629]

Personally I prefer the detail of the unbuffed but the shine of the buffed. I've learned to appreciate those who can make these with line engines and sharp graving tools where tool marks are even more invisible. Don't think I will ever go that direction, but still admire. Both are very nice pieces.

 

[Haynie]

What kind of lathe are you using?

 

[Ed McDonnell]

Personally I prefer the detail of the unbuffed but the shine of the buffed. I've learned to appreciate those who can make these with line engines and sharp graving tools where tool marks are even more invisible. Don't think I will ever go that direction, but still admire. Both are very nice pieces.

Hi Bruce - I used a 3D carving strategy for this entire piece. That saved me from having to plan a tooling change and add cutting vectors for the detail work. But this particular design (the pyramids) could easily be done using a profile strategy with an engraving tool. That would mean I would have to 3D carve the ends with the ball nose end mill and then switch to the engraving tool to cut the pyramid pattern. The cut with the engraving tool would be a vector cut and should have minimal to no tool marks. A light color buff to bring up the shine would not remove the points and I might be able to get the detail and shine both. I'll have to give that a try.

Overall, it might be a much faster strategy as well becuase 3D carving all those little pyramids takes a looooooong time. And then to just buff them off.....:frown: Yeah, I think there has to be a better way.


Ed

 

[Ed McDonnell]

What kind of lathe are you using?

Hi Mark - If you really want to know what lathe I use, I have a Microlux 7x16 metal lathe and a Powermatic 3520b.

If you are asking what tool I used to carve the design, I used a 4 axis taig cnc mill, but I only used 3 of the axes (two linear and one rotary).

Ed

 

[Curly]

And then to just buff them off.....:frown: Yeah, I think there has to be a better way.
Ed

Have you looked into electropolishing? Basically the opposite of electroplating. I haven't done it myself so can't say for sure if it is feasible but it looks promising.

 

[Donovan]

I prefer the unpolished look when compared to the polished one. If you have just the polished one with no comparison that is also very nice. I think you will get a better finish if you "program" the polished look before you cut. You will get a much more consistent finish than trying to buff it to the smooth look.

Donovan

 

[johncrane]

Very cool looks good buffed

 

[bluwolf]

I much prefer the unpolished piece. This may be a stupid suggestion but since you were asking... What about just polishing the raised double rings at each end of the barrel to give it a little detail. Just a thought.

Mike

 

[walshjp17]

Buffed is my choice.

 

[ashaw]

I like both. Real stupid question. Where do you learn to operate a cnc mill to get the kind of details that are here and elsewhere.

 

[Ed McDonnell]

Hi Pete - Thanks for the link to the electropolishing. After a little research I'm starting to think that it would give results pretty similar to buffing. But I'm not sure. I am sure that spending the money to buy the equipment and materials to play with it isn't in my budget right now.

Hi Mike - I don't think your suggestion of just buffing the ends was stupid. As a matter of fact, I'll try it tonight.

Hi Alan - Your question isn't stupid, but it is really hard for me to answer.

You have two primary kill sets to develop. First learning to create computer based designs and generate the instructions (g-code) that tell the machine what to do. Secondly learning how to setup and run the machine to actually produce the work.

There are jeweler training programs that would probably give you a good solid foundation in both sets of skills, but would likely cost a lot of time and money.

Licensing a high end cad/cam package designed for jewelers and getting trained by the vendor would be one way to get the first skill set and maybe some of the second. The packages tend to have 5 digits to the left of the decimal point. I have no idea what training would cost, but the word "affordable" probably doesn't get used a lot in describing it.

I didn't do any of that since I'm cheap and more of a figure it out myself kind of guy. But that meant spending years researching and reading on the web and then years of learning the hard way by doing things wrong until I figured out how to do it right.

If I had to do it all over again, I would consider finding a local group that specializes in building miniature engines and stuff. They seem to be all over the place. If you meet the right people you can get someone to help you up the learning curve with everything you need. It's not what I did, but I might have saved years of learning the hard way had I done that.

Ed

 

[D.Oliver]

So the question is......
Too Buff

VS.

Not too buff

 

[JTisher]

I like the unbuffed better. The buffed looks washed out.

Joe

 

[mark james]

My opinion... I would choose the unbuffed. BUT, please understand - both are great (an understatement) and both may have a different application.

As a very BAD example... Recent PSI KIts (Celtic, etc...) are NOT high quality in the sense that the scrollwork is exceptional, BUT... my 23 yr old son who has a degree in computer game design and attends board game tournaments, etc, has sold 30+ pens to friends that eat up the ... "unfinished, rough, unrefined look - they DON'T want a perfect, polished pen. They love something that looks... like used Celtic swords!

Now, hopefully you are not totally insulted that I included rough-and-tumble PSI kits and the incredible art work you craft in the same post...

My point - the unbuffed look will have a great appeal! As will the polished blan.

Again, I'll choose the unbuffed!

Oh, did I mention that your work is incredible!!!

 

[mark james]

Derek... You crack me up... Couldn't stop laughing!

 

[mark james]

I much prefer the unpolished piece. This may be a stupid suggestion but since you were asking... What about just polishing the raised double rings at each end of the barrel to give it a little detail. Just a thought.

Mike

That would be interesting!

 

[ashaw]

Thanks for the information Mike.

 

[Ed McDonnell]

Thanks for all the comments, suggestions and laughs (Derek).

I tried buffing the ends of the unbuffed piece, leaving the center detail unbuffed. I didn't care for that look, but it was worth a try. I think either the buffed or unbuffed version would make an acceptable pen, but not so much a hybrid version.

I'm going to buff it all up and try plating both parts in chrome to see what that ends up looking like. I'm also going to redo my design to use a different strategy on the center portion that should provide a much cleaner finished part. I'll probably use aluminum to test that out since brass can be a little fussy (not to mention pricey) and isn't the best choice for prototyping.

Probably going to be the weekend before I get to it. So many ideas, so many things I want to do and so little time. And I'm retired. How did I ever find the time to work?

Ed