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For French Polishing (making and using a rubber) I prefer to use worn cotton or linen sheet/material (ideally white).
For friction polishes on the lathe and all waxing etc I prefer to use flannelette sheet.
I buy new, white, brushed, flannelette sheet by the metre from Spotlight. Because the flannelette is brushed it very seldom leaves threads or anything else in the finish and for the same reason it will not leave any marks on the finish due to the weave of the material.
I never tear the material. I have a big guillotine (printers one) in the factory and cut the flannelette on that as many as 20-30 sheets thick per cut. I can't ever recall having a problem with raggy edges or leaving threads in the surface of the work.
I have never used micro fibre but would think it wouldn't be too god for waxing as it probably wouldn't remove the wax from the surface but just keep pushing it all over the finish. As I said never used it for polishing. Have had some for dusting furniture but but have my doubts about polishing with it. That's just my impression of it. If anyone has tried it and found it to work really well I'd be interested to hear adout it.
Cheers - Neil :U
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The one thing not mentioned is storage, not sure about your shed but mine gets dusty and unfortunately, I have issues with geckos.
Many years ago I bought a large plastic rubbish bin with a clipped lid, all of my “rags” are cut up and stored in the bin, kept clean and easily accessible when required.
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I had a friend toss out heaps of his cotton shirts which are pretty much used for everything from cleaning glue drops on the bench top to applying finish. Cut to smaller pieces and stored in a sealed tub ready to be used. As for the dust rags are about half the shirt size and kept in a another sealed tub.
When applying finish I always fold them within themselves to avoid any edges contacting the surface that is receiving the finish.
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Hey thanks everyone for the feedback - looks like flannelette and used cotton clothing is the go. Time to raid the kids clothes and see what T-shirts they've grown out of I reckon ;)
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I used some Microfibre cloths this week to rub in some water based grain filler, oil, and then also to do a bit of a buff. Not sure about the buffing, but for rubbing stuff in they were just fine. Certainly didn't leave any lint/fluff behind (except for one loose bit from the packet). I wish they wouldn't seam the edges though.....
