Keep on filing...burnish?

[John Delacour]

At 2:55 pm +0200 21/6/07, Danilo Perusina wrote:

>Would you be so kind as to explain to a foreigner the exact meaning 
>of burnish, as applied to graphite and the wooden parts we are 
>talking about? Online dictionaries translate it as polish.

Polishing is generally done with something like a rag and will make a 
surface shiny without necessarily leaving it flat.  Burnishing is 
done with a very smooth hard object using some pressure.  For example 
when I recondition the surface of a jack that has lost its blacklead 
and become rough, I first make it smooth and clean with P1200 paper. 
Next I apply the blacklead with a piece of check-felt.  When the 
surface is dry and hard I then hold the jack tight between thumb and 
forefinger and rub across it with a highly polished steel needle, say 
2mm in diameter, to leave a highly polished surface.  A 4B - 6B 
pencil is also quite useful for maintenance work.

If a blackleaded surface is not burnished it will be far less 
effective and prone to wear.

JD