Finally this week I made myself complete a project which has been on my list of things to get done since the start of the year - creating a housing unit for my buffing machine.

Let me start out by saying that I hate buffing metal. This is partly because I’m no longer all that keen on a mirror finish to the work I create, but also because it’s dirty work and is perhaps the most dangerous work I do in my home studio. If I find my mind continually wandering while I’m buffing I generally stop and do something else in case I suddenly find myself without a hand or an eye or something - it’s one of those things where you have to be 100% ‘there’ to do safely.

Another reason I’ve been avoiding buffing for ages is that I’ve simply not had a proper housing for my old machine, which it needs for safety reasons (to catch anything which the buffing mop grabs from my hands - without throwing it back into my face and ideally without damaging the piece!) and to try to reduce the mess and the dust I inhale (so the housing should catch this too).

I live and work in a rented home and my small studio doubles as my office - I’m lacking in space and I can’t set up anything permanent. So I figured a box in which I can keep the machine when I’m not using it and which can be moved to a suitable space when I am using it would be ideal.

So here is what I came up with. It’s a very cheap Ikea bedside table which has an upper and lower shelf and is open at the front and back.

I bought some slightly ’sticky’ and paddd vinyl which is used to hold tablecloths in place and to protect tabletops. I tacked a panel of this across the back of the box on the outside and another larger panel into the interior from the front of the bottom of the top shelf all the way around to the bottom, providing plenty of padding.

This means there’s a double layer of the vinyl where the most grime and fluff will end up - and where my work is most likely to hit if it’s grabbed out of my hands. Plus the machine won’t move around given that the surface has some grip to it.

Then I threw a bit of fabric over it to keep the ugly machine and brown vinyl hidden from view when its not in use - plus of course the top can be used as a shelf and the interior can hold my mops and buffing compounds.

And that’s it! It’s obviously not as a good as a floor mounted housing unit with an extraction fan, but it’s a great solution for now - and an extremely inexpensive one. All I need to finish the job is a lamp which will clamp to the top of the box to give me a bit more light.