old buffer

[femurat]

I recently got this old buffer, I'm so excited and can't wait to try it out but I haven't had the occasion yet.
It's an old machine built by Ercole Marelli, an old Italian factory founded in 1891 and acquired/closed in 1993. I can't read the year on the picture, it's on the right of "ANNO", looks like HB but doesn't make sense. I'll try and have a better look and let you know if I can read it.
It has 2 speed and it's very quiet and stable. There are two compounds with the machine, one is white and I'm sure it's for polishing gold, the other is red and i'm not sure what it is for.
I have a big buffing wheel I bought for a drill, it fits and spins nicely.
I also bought two sandpaper disks, 320 and 240 grit. They are not intended to be used with this machine and they spin a little off center, so I don't know if using them is a good idea, they may ruin the machine ball bearings.

Cheers

[Altashot]

Nice machine! Love the shape, almost sexy in a way.

The white compound is for hard metals and it has a mild abrasive in it so, a little bit of cutting action.
The red is called jeweler's rouge. It has no cutting action and is used for the final polish of jewels.

M.

[dicey]

Uhhh I love old stuff!

Cool machine how much did you pay for it?

[fgarci03]

Beautifull machine!
Nice, nice find mate!

Are you going to use it, or have it displayed?

[Dogrocket]

Gorgeous old machine - my first guess was "HB" might be "83". But that looks about 50 years to late.

[MrWizard]

That is a very cool buffer looks like something from Tesla's workshop.
I would only use wheels that are made for buffing and balanced on that fine machine. Great find I would like to have one like that.

Richard

[femurat]

Thanks to all for the kind words

Thanks Altashot, your "jeweler's rouge" keywords were very helpful while looking for videos about polishing metal.

dicey, I sorta inherited this machine, so no money were spent on getting it.

fgarci03, I'm going to use it! I'll clean and maybe repaint the two grey covers and then keep it on my workbench.

Dogrocket, I thought 83 too when I first red the year. I agree with you, this buffer was made a lot earlier.

Sure Richard, I'll try to avoid using heavy wheels. I hope this buffer will last and using heavy wheels won't help.

Cheers