caryc
Hawkeye
I posted this on another forum and decided I might as well post it here also.
There's been some talk on ram's horn grips lately. I thought I'd give some advice on polishing rams horn. There was a question on what finish to use on it. My answer, it needs no applied finish. This is how I do it.
When making a set of horn grips, I final sand down to 600 grit. That's basically all you need. Then comes the polishing process. It's best to have a bench buffer. But, a bench grinder will work just as well. They usually turn at the same RPM as the buffer, 3450. I use three different compounds when polishing horn. These compounds are used on a 6" buffing wheel. First load the wheel with the "cutting" compound and polish your horn. The cutting compound takes out most of the fine scratches. Next load another wheel (never mix compounds on your wheels) with the "coloring" compound. This compound takes you to the final polished finish.
But I go one step further for the best finish. I use a compound available from Brownells. It is their 555 White polish-o-ray compound. It is for polishing stainless steel to a mirror finish and works wonders on horn. You can see the evidence in the picture below.
The first two compounds are available at http://www.mcmaster.com/ Part numbers are.
cutting compound 4801A4
coloring compound 4801A5
Once you use the 555 White compound and get that beautiful finish, you may find that it shows some minute scratches when held in the light just right. If you see any of that just lightly sand the spot with 1500 grit paper and re polish with the 555 white compound. Those scratches will disappear and you will get a finish like you see in the pic below. I hope this helps some of you budding grip makers out there. Oh yeah, a final applied wax certainly will not hurt anything. I'm sure other people have their own way of polishing horn but this works well for me.
There's been some talk on ram's horn grips lately. I thought I'd give some advice on polishing rams horn. There was a question on what finish to use on it. My answer, it needs no applied finish. This is how I do it.
When making a set of horn grips, I final sand down to 600 grit. That's basically all you need. Then comes the polishing process. It's best to have a bench buffer. But, a bench grinder will work just as well. They usually turn at the same RPM as the buffer, 3450. I use three different compounds when polishing horn. These compounds are used on a 6" buffing wheel. First load the wheel with the "cutting" compound and polish your horn. The cutting compound takes out most of the fine scratches. Next load another wheel (never mix compounds on your wheels) with the "coloring" compound. This compound takes you to the final polished finish.
But I go one step further for the best finish. I use a compound available from Brownells. It is their 555 White polish-o-ray compound. It is for polishing stainless steel to a mirror finish and works wonders on horn. You can see the evidence in the picture below.
The first two compounds are available at http://www.mcmaster.com/ Part numbers are.
cutting compound 4801A4
coloring compound 4801A5
Once you use the 555 White compound and get that beautiful finish, you may find that it shows some minute scratches when held in the light just right. If you see any of that just lightly sand the spot with 1500 grit paper and re polish with the 555 white compound. Those scratches will disappear and you will get a finish like you see in the pic below. I hope this helps some of you budding grip makers out there. Oh yeah, a final applied wax certainly will not hurt anything. I'm sure other people have their own way of polishing horn but this works well for me.
