CA Fininsh.......scratch free?

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dplloyd

Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2010
Messages
152
Location
Pearland, TX
OK so I'm more than anal about my CA finishes having the least bit of a scratch in it.

Is it possible to get a CA Finish scratch free??

99% of customers wont see it...BUT I DO! It kills me:at-wits-end:

Looking for feed back:biggrin:

CHEERS!........and HAppy New Year!
 
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Put it on a buffer. No scratches but don't be so hard on yourself. Unless you are selling to the purest of pen collectors it is overkill. People who buy pens to use will scratch them. CA is not scratch proof. Make the fit your uttmost best and that will go a long way too.

Another one of those disclaimers that does not get mentioned and I keep forgetting there are so many newbies. Do not assemble pen and then use the buffer. It will take the plating off.
 
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I have the PSI three buffer system. I'll try the tripoli and white on them and see how it turns out.

I am my toughest critic...I'll resolute to ease up on myself:biggrin:

Thanks John
 
I've been concentrating on my finishing for quite a while and have several "learnings" to share: 1 - slow your lathe down to its lowest speed when finishing CA. 2 - Use a lubricant (wet sand) through 2000. Then polish or go to MM. 3 - When wet sanding, keep a very light hand and finish each grit with longitudinal sanding. 4 - Use a buffing wheel system but here. too, go at it light and slow.
 
I wet sand with abrasol 400, 600. Then wet sand with Micromesh 4000 through 12000.
Then flannel buffers using the Caswell Ultra Plastic Polish and Caswell Fine Plastic Polish. Finally, hand wip on the Meguiar polish in the black plastic tube (can't recall the name).
 
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I hand sand the CA first long ways with 400 grit until there are NO shiny spots, they will telegraph through the finish. Then I sand through the mm disks to 12000 following with the stickfast gloss polish. Works for me.

Jim
 
Actually the anser is no. It is impossible to eliminate all the scratches. This is because everything you touch the finish with is an abrasive which will hopefully reduce the scratches to be smaller than the last one. You can use a buffer as suggested and make the scratches so small you need to look under high magnification, but stop beating yourself up because they are still there even if you dont see them. I buff my acrylic blanks so the scratches are smaller than the flow lines of the plastic colors flowing together under 10X. But I know if I look under 50X the scratches will look huge. So it all comes down to perspective. So try buffing and coming to peace with the scratch.
 
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