Polishing with flex shaft help!

I'm hoping some of you lovely and experienced folk can help me out with a bit of advice.

I used to polish everything by hand but just cant do it due to increase in orders. I bought a flex shaft (a while ago but havent used it properly), most of my work is very flat and when i tried the radial discs I just didnt get on with them as they were leaving grooves soooo ive bought some felt heads, cotton heads, tripoli and rouge and am getting on with these quite well BUT even though I'm cleaning the piece after using wet and dry etc the head when finishing polishing after tripoli and rouge (im obv using different heads for each one) is very black. Is this right? Do I need to prepare the heads in some way? Any advice would be great. Thank you ever so much

No, finely divided metals of all colours appear black. This is why polishing with mops is a dirty business, and you need a strong detergent and possibly an ultrasonic bath to clean your pieces afterwards.

You can do better by using oil free compounds, which are easier to remove. Menzerna, which started off as a car polish have a suitable range.

It is also a good idea to keep separate mops for each compound, but there is no need to wash them as it just wastes polish. However you need to cut any long threads which appear, or hold an old coarse file, or a knife against the mop to dress it from time to time. Dennis.

I support Dennis in what he said , down the track you may want to consider a bench machine, with lager buffs 3' - 6' or even a 8' a much faster process, just buy a bench grinder and adapt it, less expensive than dedicated buff machine.
Many people will say you can't use a grinder because they go to fast or they are not heavy duty enough and they the wrong colour etc.etc. well have been using a converted bench grinder for five years and something like 10 years before that as a bench grinder in my shed, still going strong

Also agree. I bought an Aldi bench grinder, replaced the wheels with buffs and it's perfect for buffing everything but the inside of rings. For that your flex shaft is perfect, with cone shaped felt 'heads'. I built an open fronted wooden box that sits over the grinder to stop tripoli and rouge plastering the wall behind it!!! That also catches anything I lose my grip on while polishing :-)

For the inside of ring, you can use a ring buff which attaches the same as the wheels
http://www.gemcuts.com.au/felt-combination-ring-buff