Best way to finish Buckeye Burl

I'm looking for the best way to finish Buckeye. Right now I'm mixing epoxy with buckeye dust and packing it into the holes. What do I need to do to make this stuff really shine?

What I do with most of my scales are pretty much the same . I do most of my work with my 2 X 72 belt and start out with rough and work it up to 220. I then have my scales pretty nicely shaped and pretty smooth . From the 220 , I do the rest by hand and work the scales up 800grit . (some guys stop at 400 , but the higher grit you go , the better finish you'll get ) Once your happy with the finish you get by hand , I then use my buffing wheel ( soft , dont remember the actual name for the wheel Im using , but it is a soft / loose wheel ) And lightly buff it .. You will see a world of differance when you hit it with the buffing wheel ..I use a pink compond for my steel for higher glossy finishes and I use the same stuff on the wood. Remember not to push on it to hard , you may pull some of the wood away , espicially if it hasnt been stabilized..
Again , this works for me and it may not work for others . Ive had pretty good luck with it though. Good luck .

Pretty much what Mikey D said only I won't use un Stabilized Buckeye. Way to soft.

Once I get to 800G to 1200 depending how I want the pop to be on the finish. The finer, The More pop you get.
I have found a Jewelry Rouge called Fabulustor! Spelling? It's a white and used for Gold & Silver etc.
I use it on all of my handle woods. I think Tru-Grit Ontario has it and the place I know carries it and has most everything for finishing is www.riogrande.com/


If you have a Foredom Flex shaft or Dremel you can get these 3" little Muslim cotton buffing wheels from Rio and a tapered mandrel that fits in the Foredom chuck. It works great and you can just work on little spots for touch up or go over the whole thing for a presentation grade shine & Pop on your handles, Bolsters etc...

I used this for all buffing for over 10 years before I purchased a Baldor buffing machine.

The Foredom is a much safer and more versatile machine cause you can do so many things with it.

thanks maybe I'm not sanding high enough. I'll try that.

I take notice of any voids in the scales when I start hand sanding. I put a drop of super glue in the voids and sand over it while the super glue is wet. The sanding dust mixes with the super glue and quickly dries. I may need to do this a couple times if the void is large. By the time you get to the finer grits, the void is gone.

Should I drown the thing in CA then sand? Here's how it came out so far. It has a sheen but nowhere near glossy.

Thats a nice piece of burl. I dont know I always did the superglue finish on it.

Tape and WAX over the blade @ the ricasso area, You don't want the Ca in those file marks.
Then slowly drown in a super thin penantrating Ca.

You will be able to see it penetrating the burl wood. I let it dry complete and then sand with fresh pieces of 800G or finer,

Laurence

www.rhinoknives.com/

thanks I'll give that a try

thanks fro the tip about the wax. I have trouble getting the stuff on the ricasso area and it is a pain to get it off.

good job dan308 , it looks like a great knife:35:

If the wood hasn't been stabilized, it will be much harder to get the glossy look you want. Maybe try Tru Oil on it in very thin coats?? If it's stabilized, hand sand to around 1000 and then use a finish on it. Tru Oil, Lin Speed, something like that, or the CA finish. I have used Micro Mesh sandpaper up to the 12000 grit and it gets VERY shiny at that level! I did a faux pearl handle on it and it glistened really nicely when it was finished to that level.

Here's a tutorial from Bruce Bump on how he uses the CA glue to finish a handle. Scroll down to near the end and you'll see it.

Hidden Tang My Way

Forget about the CA. If it is stabilized, sand to 600 then use pink buffing compound to give it a shine. Works every time.

If it's stabilized, the further you go past 600 the glassier it will become. I also have the micro-mesh sanding pads (you can find them on pen turner's sites) and using them to their finest grit produces an amazing finish.

If it's unstabilized, it really should have been treated with CA while in slab form...it takes a fair amount of ca to soak into the wood. I just did a pair of scales recently, using the very thin consistency CA and it took nearly the whole bottle over the course of several days.