I received an email advertisement from Stewart-Macdonald the same company that sells black super glue. In it they were talking about a new product that is used in the guitar making industry. I have found that several of the tools and sanding blocks etc. work very well in refurbishing pipes. These particular tools are called Fret Erasers. They are flexible self-padded rubber blocks embedded with abrasive grits. They were being billed as “incredibly handy, to erase fine file marks and scratches”. The grits are color-coded for convenience. The ad went on to say that they polish the frets to a high gloss shine.
They come in coarse, medium, medium fine, fine and extra fine. I ordered a pair of the two finest grits to try out in my work on stems. My expectations were that they would exceptionally well up against the angles of the button at the end of the pipe stem and also very well around inset logos and medallions. The edges are square and the block fits well in the hand and can be held against the angle of the button easily. I have sanding wedges and small sanding blocks that I used to work with around the button and always fought them a bit to keep the sand paper from slipping or getting worn thin at the crease. This product does not have that problem and they leave behind no sandy grit or particles of steel wool (as the advert promised).
I put them through their paces on the last batch of stems that I cleaned up and they worked nicely and left a smooth shiny surface. In my experimenting with them I used them between the wet dry sandpaper and the micromesh pads. I left the final polishing to the higher grits of micromesh pads. I also used them around the BBB Diamond and the GBD rondelles and they were easily maneuvered around those without compromising the relief of the stamping. I also want to try them around stamped logos and see how well they work. In the future I plan on using these two blocks in place of the 4000 and 6000 grit micromesh pads for the final polishing before I buff them on the wheel.
Here is the link to the Stewart-Macdonald website and the Fret erasers.
http://www.stewmac.com/npa/0472?utm_…_0472_20120423
Anybody else ever used these?
rebornpipes 
Thanks. That sounds like a good solution to those creases and buttons. I restore a lot of GBD’s and getting close to but not damaging that rondel is always tricky. I went back to that area on a 9438 I had restored to get it a little more black, around the rondel and manage to take off the brass finish. I’d like to avoid that in the future. I’ll add a few to my black superglue order as I needed to have a tube of that in the box as well.
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