1 hour ago, schnewj said:

The dowel is a rod that goes through the finger pulls to keep the shelves from falling out when I move it around. In addition, I used a rare earth magnet on the drawer to keep it from doing the same. If you look real close you can see it in the upper right corner of the drawer.

 

Not a great photo, but it gives you the idea.

 

 

The reason I asked was that I did use a dowel on a board to line up the sticky backed PSA discs with the hole when I installed them. Works both on the glass with sanding discs and on the MDF with the magnetic discs.. But that is a good idea to lock the shelves in place with a rod.

Herb

Do double duty...make the knob on the top of the rod the alignment tool. All you need is to hold the rod in place and be able to grab it to extract it. So, a slightly undersized 1/2" knob, place the platen on top and then place the disc. Done job!

How about charging the MDF discs with jeweler's rouge? 

Judging from your set up Bill, I'll bet you've seen that before.

 

Herb and I had this discussion on another forum. From what I have read the green (Chromium Oxide...I believe) is the best thing to use. I use red jewelers' rouge on an leather belt attached to a piece of Hardboard as a strop. When I worked for Case Cutlery (many lifetimes ago) we used white to buff the knife blades.

 

I haven't taken the time to make some MDF discs, although I have a piece of 1/2" MDF allotted. I wanted to get to the leather shop to buy a piece of leather to attach to the disc(s). After that it is only a matter of charging the leather with whatever poison I choose...white, red, or green. Instead of charging the MDF directly I think that the leather would allow the disc(s) to have a little more longevity then directly charging.

 

Paul Sellers uses the green to do a final stropping of his plane irons and chisels. I guess that after four or five decades he should know what works.

31 minutes ago, schnewj said:

Herb and I had this discussion on another forum. From what I have read the green (Chromium Oxide...I believe) is the best thing to use. I use red jewelers' rouge on an leather belt attached to a piece of Hardboard as a strop. When I worked for Case Cutlery (many lifetimes ago) we used white to buff the knife blades.

 

I haven't taken the time to make some MDF discs, although I have a piece of 1/2" MDF allotted. I wanted to get to the leather shop to buy a piece of leather to attach to the disc(s). After that it is only a matter of charging the leather with whatever poison I choose...white, red, or green. Instead of charging the MDF directly I think that the leather would allow the disc(s) to have a little more longevity then directly charging.

 

Paul Sellers uses the green to do a final stropping of his plane irons and chisels. I guess that after four or five decades he should know what works.

The leather stropping disc I made with the MDF disc,  One side was with the rough side of the leather out which is the side I charge, and the other side is the smooth side of the leather out that I use to to polish. I tried the white, green, and red. The green seemed to work the best for a one shot polish. But if I used the red ,then the green then the white I can get a super mirror finish.

Herb