Another dumb question.... Do you burnish wraps if they are already tight? I have upset a couple of trim bands while burnishing and had to re-do the wraps... Of course it could be technique... Thanks for your answers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2007 01:21AM by Bill Lane.

I use a bokin to burnish the wraps I use a back and forth motion. You may want to rub towards the guide when you get to the trim wrap.

Burnish them.

A few years ago I made some color sticks. Made a pair of 1/2" wraps of every color I had on some scrap blank. CP on one of the two wraps then finished them both. I was in a rush and didn't really care how they looked so much. Just wanted them for color reference. After they were finished I got a good glimpse of what the difference between burnishing and not burnishing is like. I always burnish now.

Better to have and not need than to need and not have.

Bill Proper burnishing should be done toward the center of the wrap not toward the ends. This may be what you are talking about as perhaps you loosened the wrap by burnishing toward the end???

Thanks Matt for the test results, and Billy and Fred for the advice. Yes, I have been burnishing the whole thing to flatten and keep what's under from peaking through. And yes while working from inside to out, the trim wraps have come loose. I am slow and careful at wrapping them and lose a good 15 minutes work when that happens plus the wraps I cut off because they didn't come out close enough to perfect for me. I was just thinking I could try burnishing before I cut the tag ends off.

If I have single-turn metallic trim inlays, or some such fragile trim wrap, I just burnish right up next to it, but not over it. Even upon close inspection, I've never been able to tell that the metallic (and the few threads around it) weren't burnished.

If you're doing trim bands at the ends of wraps, and you're using two or three turns, you can burnish the main wrap, then put your trim thread on separately, and not burnish it. Again, I only ever really skip the burnishing if I'm dealing with just a few turns of metallics.

At the end of your post, you mention - cutting the threads.

Many folks use a razor blade to cut their threads after wrapping.

One fellow suggested to me that he uses very fine tipped fly tying scissors.
Since switching to a pair of fly tying scissors for thread cutting; I find that I am doing a much better job - closer trimming and never have to worry about the blade cutting into any previo¨s wrap.

Before switching to a pair of scissors, I did have the misadventure of nicking a thread or two or three so that I was forced to cut off the guide and rewrap. After switching to scissors, I have never had to rewrap a guide due to a thread trimming.

Roger