Alright, another two-bits worth.
If you ARE going for pretty, not so much accurate planar or specific dimension surfaces, you will be hard pressed to not find a Cratex or Cratex style rubberized abrasive, really handy. Another on that started out with the tool and die, and mold makers, I think, but the Jewellery makers took one look and said "WANT!"
They come in many shapes, sizes and hardness, and in many different grits, they tend to wear pretty quickly if you get heavy handed, but it can mean seconds, cleaning off, say, file marks on file-worked knife blades, instead of minutes to hours with various grits wrapped around a stick. A quick search around the interwebs will get you an idea of what is out there.
3M, originally known as Minnesota Mining and Machine, makes a rubberized wheel that will go on your bench grinder that will allow you to de-burr the edges of aluminum and other non-ferrous materials that are usually really hazardous to have near a grinder. Again, a heavy handed guy can eat through a $50 wheel in a couple minutes, but someone that takes care, and uses a light touch, can get a pretty good life out of the stuff. These wheels can be used to blend really nice looking fillets, out of some pretty bad welding jobs, say, on a bolt handle or milsurp sporterization. They leave a passable enough finish that I have seen parts go straight in to the bluing from the wheel, after a degrease. At worst, they take a little shot on a buffing wheel.
Felt and cloth buffs for the Dremel, or it's bigger badder cousin, the Foredom tool, can be really handy. Again, a heavy hand can ruin a lot of them quick, and if you are really heavy handed, you can screw up your own work if the felt explodes and you run the mandrel across the work. It is best, as always, to start with a lighter touch, and go harder, rather than to go hard from the start and try to fix the mess later! You could probably write a volume about buffing wheels alone, but in my experiences, it boils down to watching what it does, and fixing what it's doing wrong. If it leaves great crusty smears of compound on the work, you have way too much compound. If the stitching is breaking loose and walloping your work, stop the wheel and cut back the loose ends, and so on.
My first experiences polishing, was working after my day job hours, in the back of a bike shop polishing mostly British Bike parts. I learned a LOT about the differences between the various grades of Jewellers Rouge, as it is not, by any means, all the same. Typically the product line will run dark for coarse and gritty, to lighter, all the way to white, for the finest grit available. Along the lines of Black, Red, Green, White. But not always. You gotta read the frikken instructions. There are grease-less grits out there that require melting your 'glue' on to the buffing wheel, then using friction to melt that so it holds some of the actual abrasives. But most of the polishing compounds readily available are greasy blocks or sticks that you are supposed to wipe lightly across the spinning buffing wheel, rather than trying to get the thing to melt a 1/4 inch deep in to the wheel.
When working with a buffing wheel, on a bench grinder style set-up, it pays to take care that you are applying the contact with the part, below center of the wheel and with the face you are polishing, at a very small angle, so as to avoid it digging in. Buffers are notorious for grabbing the work and flinging it. High speed contact with the wall, is NOT a great way to get a nice finish! BTDT!
These days when I do power buffing with a wheel, I still use an old furnace fan, 1725 RPM motor that I scrounged up MANY years ago, that has a mandrel on it I bought a C-Tire, and a buffing wheel from Busy Bee tools. Works for me. Low enough torque that if I get caught up I can actually stall out the motor, and it will stop, if I press too hard, same, it stops turning and restarts when I let up the pressure.
And as a last note on power buffing. It's a filthy dirty process, you spray powdered buffing wheel, powdered metal, and whatever binders are in the polish, everywhere. Domestic Harmony is best achieved without black, greasy hand and foot prints in the house.
Best done away from the stuff you want to stay clean!
