How to clean VERY dirty shaft?

600 grit + lathe. i doubt that color goes very deep.

-s

Try spinning in a lathe and hitting it with a damp Magic Eraser first,then let it air dry for an hour or so before sandpaper.(just my opinion for SUPER dirty shafts)

i'm not an expert by any means, but i've cleaned many a blue shaft. here's my method for very dirty ones. start with a damp cloth on a lathe followed immediately with a dry one. repeat until no more blue comes off on the rag. switch to 90% alcohol with a magic eraser immediately followed again by the dry rag, repeat as needed. then use 1000 grit to knock the fibers of the wood down a bit, then seal and burnish.

The key to getting as much of the chalk out of the shaft as possible is using a Magic Eraser and cleaning WITH the grain of the shaft. I use denatured alcohol to do this. Clean a few times until the piece of Magic Eraser isn't picking up any more color off the shaft. Then, spin it on the lathe and dry/burnish it with a paper towel. Next, I'd hit it with some 600 grit, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000, and 2500. After that, seal with a good wax.

Just wondering why you burnish before you seal? Is that pretty much standard practice of everyone? I like to seal before I burnish while the pores of the wood are still "open" and can accept it better. I also seal with bowling alley wax.

QUOTE=ragbug74;2298834]The key to getting as much of the chalk out of the shaft as possible is using a Magic Eraser and cleaning WITH the grain of the shaft. I use denatured alcohol to do this. Clean a few times until the piece of Magic Eraser isn't picking up any more color off the shaft. Then, spin it on the lathe and dry/burnish it with a paper towel. Next, I'd hit it with some 600 grit, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000, and 2500. After that, seal with a good wax.[/QUOTE]

D-Rock said:

Just wondering why you burnish before you seal? Is that pretty much standard practice of everyone? I like to seal before I burnish while the pores of the wood are still "open" and can accept it better. I also seal with bowling alley wax.

QUOTE=ragbug74;2298834]The key to getting as much of the chalk out of the shaft as possible is using a Magic Eraser and cleaning WITH the grain of the shaft. I use denatured alcohol to do this. Clean a few times until the piece of Magic Eraser isn't picking up any more color off the shaft. Then, spin it on the lathe and dry/burnish it with a paper towel. Next, I'd hit it with some 600 grit, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000, and 2500. After that, seal with a good wax.

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[/QUOTE]

I hit it with the paper towel to dry it more than actually burnish it. I generate a bit of heat with the paper towel to dry out the denatured alcohol and let it air dry for a minute or two. This way, when you hit it with the 600 grit, as long as you don't lay on it for 5 minutes, you're essentially pulling the dried alcohol and other left-behind chalk residue off the surface of the shaft. From there, I proceed up through the finer grits of sandpaper, then wax with Butcher's wax.

ragbug74 said:

The key to getting as much of the chalk out of the shaft as possible is using a Magic Eraser and cleaning WITH the grain of the shaft.

Click to expand...

agreed.....