Thoughts on polishing vulcanite

6000 thru 12000, wet, and finished with commercial polish/sealer. 10 minutes per side.

Because Mister Moo is always going on about the wonders of Micro-Mesh.... I finally bought some to try out, I'll report back after giving them a go. They do smell really bad though...... -David

So I got the micro mesh abrasive papers. In short, I like them, but there are some things I prefer about regular wet/dry sand paper. I got the cloth backed micro mesh sheets, but I think there is a foam backed version that might have been better for some things.



Here are the sheets and the sanding black that came with the set.

I tested them on the stem pictured below. This stem looks really bad with the direct flash, but in normal room lighting it didn't seem so bad other than an area toward the button.


After using the almost the whole series of micro-mesh I ended up with this. I probably should have spent more time on the higher grits....


Again, the flash really makes this look much worse that it really was. You can see on the tenon end there is still some light oxidation, again, not too bad. I purposely was not very aggressive on that end as I did not want to round the edge. Also you can see some oxidation on the saddle. My real issue with the micro-mesh in the cloth backed form was not being able to get right up to the lip on the button. You can see some oxidation left just behind the lip; this is where sand paper shines, as you can make a sharp fold in it and work the crease in that tight spot without rounding anything over. At this point I put the stem back on the pipe and VERY lightly sanded the tenon shoulder and the whole rest of the pipe with the fine grades of micro-mesh papers. I final polish of the stem with Brebbia stem polish and some carnauba wax on the buffing wheel finished things off.



I think I will always keep some micro mesh around. It did an extra nice job on the briar and worked well on the stem. I think I will keep some wet/dry papers around to work on some of the tight areas on the stem. Also, I think the micro-mesh does not replace the Brebbia pipe stem polish for cleaning up some of the tight areas like the the saddle on this bit (Brebbia on a Q-tip worked well on that area).

Moo, thank's for the Micro-Mesh suggestion! Also, as Moo said, you do not need a buffer to polish up pipes. It may be nice, but everything can be done by hand fairly quickly. I only used a buffer to buff carnauba on the briar which is nice, but there are paste waxes that can be used if you don't have a buffer! So for under 30$ you can have a complete pipe/stem polishing kit! -David

Thanks! The pipe is a Comoy's Guildhall that was part of my fathers collection. -David

Thanks, I'll give those a try! -David