Posted by Chuck(G) on November 28, 2001 at 21:05:37:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Silver plating......a Mel Culbertson 6/4 posted by David on November 28, 2001 at 18:35:41:
Unless you have a VERY patient and conscientious repair guy, the amount of metal removed by buffing is much more than the few microns added by plating.
For surface prep, the typical tech usually loads the buffing wheel up with tripoli and lets 'er rip, taking out scratches and bits of lacquer left over from stripping, eventually finishing up with rouge. If you can talk your repair guy into using nothing more aggressive than rouge for the whole job, then you might consider the metal loss/gain an even swap. But buffing using rouge only is a lot more time-consuming (and messier) and you may also have to live with small surface imperfections, such as the occasional scratch that wouldn't buff out without using a more cutting abrasive.
There was a posting by Sam Gnagey about a month ago on why he DOESN'T pretty up his Sam-o-phones and it made excellent sense to me.
Only my humble opinion, of course. Joe, Matt or Sam, feel free to jump in here...