McDermott leather burnisher

[Meat]

Dumb question, am I supposed to use the rough side of the leather, or do you use both sides?

[McChen]

the rough side

[Willieboy]

I have used a match book and a touch of spit on the edges of my tip for years. Works like a charm.

[McChen]

willieboy, i think he is asking about burnishing his shaft not the tip. definitely don't use a matchbook and spit on your shaft, hehe :)

[dags_lax]

Matchbook and spit works fine, shaft or tip.

[Willieboy]

When I have burnished the tips on my cues over the years, my understanding was that doing so would harden the sides of the tip and help prevent mushrooming. I've never burnished my shafts. What does burnishing the shaft accomplish? Does burnishing the shaft involve the generation of heat? Is it heat that accomplishes the burnishing?

Thanks.

[poohkiller]

I don't think that the heat does the burnishing - I reckon that the grits on the paper (if you use a sandpaper) are the ones that are removing the material from your shaft. I think that heat is just an outcome of the burnishing but that does not clean the shaft because if heat would do the cleaning than you could use a hairdryer to clean your shaft :o)). What do you think?

[skor]

Poo, you are wrong :!:
Burnishing the shaft will make it smoother after sanding it or just using cleaning compounds like Q-Clean.
What burnishing is doing is generating heat that will seal the wood pores that were opened with the sanding and the cleaning compounds.
So not only burnishing will make the shaft smoother but it will also prevent dirt to get into the wood pores.

[poohkiller]

Whoa, good to know that :!: I've read about wood pores on this forum recently but now I understand what happens to them perfectly. Thank you skor for clearing this up for me!