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More specifically silver sousaphone bells…

I tend to think my results are pretty decent, but I don’t get the “mirror” finish people tend to strive for. I have a feeling that it is just the wheel I’m using(it being desperately undersized and super old). The cramped buffing room doesn’t help either…. The silver sousaphone bells in question are all 15+ year old Yamaha bells. I’ve only really had to buff small tuba bells or smaller before on a regular basis so my experience with larger bells is minimal. Any advice helps :)

It's much easier to get a pretty finish with center-sewn flannel, but I've managed before with muslin when I just didn't have any flannel buffs on hand. If they're smaller than 8 inches and don't feature a whole bunch of plies, you're probably going to struggle if trying to make a large continuous surface look really pretty), and - pretty much - the faster the RPMs the better. Probably over 3,000 RPMs defines that the wheel becomes a little bit hard. A buffing rake breaks up little chunks of jewelers rouge wax that cling to the wheel and can actually scratch instead of polish. Excessive pressure causes heat that encourages rouge to clump up on buffing wheels back into a wax. Things tend to look better if the person polishing doesn't let the buffing wheel snatch them and slam them against the wall. If you can find someone who has a knack for this and is dumb enough to do it for you for money on a continuous and reliable basis, you should try to keep them around.

Over and out.