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Today I buff out #3.
How often do you rake the wheels? Before every guitar? During the buffing session? The medium wheel has very dark red on it but its not hard or dry clumps. I'm using StewMac buffer and compounds.

JJ (Spray Finishing with Jeff Jewitt) raked the wheels before he started buffing and implied to do this at the beginning of the buffing session. Does this mean before every guitar? Raking creates a white-out blizzard of cotton fiber, so I don't want to rake them more than necessary.

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

What I’ve found is as long as I don’t overload the buffs in use I only have to rake at the start of each body / neck. If you see any caked on compound or worse if it’s flinging off the buff, definitely rake it during the process. Try to just “color” the buff. Once it’s colored it’s ready.

After raking the buff, slowly rotate the wheel looking down from above the face of the buff and trim any whippers or tufts sticking up. I have a dedicated pair of scissors for this so I don’t accidentally contaminate the buff. You want a flat surface across the face of the buff, all the way around. Give it a haircut each time.

This is what I learned from Brian Howard in his shop. Hopefully I’m remembering it right. It’s what I have in my notes.


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I think you’ve got it. Errant threads can leave lines…

Thanks for the replies fellas. No.3 is now buffed. I raked them, but this time I used only one line of the teeth contacting the wheel, not the entire five rows of teeth. It was more like light flurries than a full-on Norther.

I do look for and cut the loose threads but have not given the buffs a "haircut". They are not flat on the top, will fix that next buff.

Buffing is a very high pucker factor for me, maybe even more than routing channels.

The first neck I ever buffed was ripped from my hands and thrown to the floor. Took me "several" weeks to fix the damage. I think I was watching the contact point of the buffer wheel, not the heel piece that was above center. I now cover dicey parts with my hand so I can sense if I'm getting near the wheel.

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

I always pile one of those old style thick cotton sleeping bags on the floor in the target zone below the buffer just in case. So far, I've avoided having anything ripped out of my hands, but having it there provides some peace of mind in that if it happened, damage would be greatly reduced.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Had one neck ripped out of my hands, fortunately damage was minimal and easily touched up, could have been much, much worse.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Don't overload the buff, Mr Combs has it right, and light raking/snipping off tails helps. I usually rake after buffing, so it's not died out, then it's ready for next job.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.