SANDPAPER...FOR SERIOUS DENTS ONLY

[Kokopuffs]

Sandpaper is used to relieve DENTS ONLY. Otherwise stick to Shark Oil and your leather burnisher. They'll relieve minor dents with little effort.

PERIOD.

You can try glass such as the Cue Doctor Dent buffer or a tiny drop of water or steam which can raise the wood back to its original shape

[parrothead]

Thanks but I will keep polishing my shaft with 1000-1500 grit after a good Q-Clean cleaning and a burnish.

[Kokopuffs]

Burnishing is done last. It's the final smoothing of the shaft.

[jbenson]

When I first get a new shaft, I do use sandpaper on it to start. I start with 400 grit to the the wax off the shaft, but I only strip off as far as my fingers would go when performing a shot. After the 400 grit paper, I move up to 600, then 1500, and finally 2000. After spending about 5 minutes with each grit, the very last thing I do is use Mother's paste wax. I put a light coat on and then use a good piece of burnishing leather. Actually I use the leather burnisher that I got from Seyberts :). I make sure to build up alot of friction so the wax goes into the pores of the wood. Not only does it protect the shaft wood from the little dings one manages to get, it keep the finish nice and glassy smooth.

Just my 2 cents

[parrothead]

Burnishing is done last. It's the final smoothing of the shaft.

I do it twice. Sometimes you can get rid of the slightly raised grain feel with a good leather rub, and sometimes you can't. So if I can't a do a little sand paper polish then the leather again and its good as new(or better). As for using sand paper for dings, I would love to know how your doing that. The hot iron trick works awesome for me and I have gotten some really serious dents out that way and never have a cause any harm to a shaft.

[Kokopuffs]

A tip replacement person sanded my shaft so much that the diameter was reduced by approximately 1/4 mm. Another "replacement" person, after trimming the new tip, sanded another of my shafts despite my request that the shaft not be sanded. God D*mmit. Can't people follow my *#(&^$#(&*$^# instructions?

What's so tough about not sanding a shaft pursuant to the customer's request? That's why I refuse to allow ANYONE in the Denver area to touch my shafts. Since some locals fail to listen, either I replace the tip myself or will send the shaft to my cue maker, Rick Phillippi, for tip replacement - all the way to Maryland.

[wobster]

I have had my cues cleaned by a replacement person MANY times, and have never noticed any loss of wood. He uses 400-1600 grit paper, about 30 seconds on a lathe of each. I tried it myself once, without a lathe, and found that I am not very good at it, so I will leave it to the professionals.

[skor]

Kokopuffs
do your own tips and problem solved :)

i was working on my shaft (dirty blue, chalk deeply embedded) today using a lathe and 1200 grit sandpaper... wen i finally took out most of the chalk wad i noticed was dat the cue had many 'depressions' (i dunno if they are open pores... seem like it but i doubt they are) which picked up the white stuff dat sandpaper leaves behind...

at first it was pretty deep, but i sort of reduced the problem by using the q-smooth burnishing papers n some japanese-made sponge (which got the powdery stuff out)... but i didnt get rid of it totally, cos i was afraid of oversanding...

any suggestions how to rectify such a problem?