What am I buffing for?

[strathmoredesigns]

Ok, here's a leather 101 question for you. It's frequently said that we need to "buff till your arm's ready to fall off." But as a relative newby, I have to ask, aside from feeling like I need a new arm, what other indicators can I look for to help figure if I've buffed enough? Right now I'm dealing with a piece of tannery oil tanned that I've sprayed four coats of 1:1 water:resolene on. So the color is holding fine, no issues there. What else can I look for to tell me if I'm done buffing?

[Troy I]

I don't know what your buffing so much for.  I buff to remove excess dye and to achieve the shine I want.

[fredk]

1. buffing after dyeing; removes excess dye. First couple of times buffing removes obvious excess, continued buffing removes excess which may still come to the surface. For this, use a light coloured cloth, changing the surface frequently. Once the cloth shows absolutely no colour on it from the dye its buffed enough

2. buffing after final finish; after putting on a bee'swax mixture, the heat generated by buffing helps melt the beeswax mix into the leather fibres, it also helps to compress the surface fibres to make it smoother. First couple of times just gets that mix into the leather, the next few times smooths the leather and starts to bring up the shine

[strathmoredesigns]

Thanks guys, that helps!

[Halitech]

If you are using oil tanned leather, it's pre-dyed so you aren't going to need to dye it so therefore no buffing extra dye off

[LeatherWorkerGirl]

On 6/25/2017 at 2:26 PM, fredk said:

1. buffing after dyeing; removes excess dye. First couple of times buffing removes obvious excess, continued buffing removes excess which may still come to the surface. For this, use a light coloured cloth, changing the surface frequently. Once the cloth shows absolutely no colour on it from the dye its buffed enough

2. buffing after final finish; after putting on a bee'swax mixture, the heat generated by buffing helps melt the beeswax mix into the leather fibres, it also helps to compress the surface fibres to make it smoother. First couple of times just gets that mix into the leather, the next few times smooths the leather and starts to bring up the shine

This will help me a lot too, thank you!