{another ribald wisecrack about KNOBS goes here}

 The cleaned, polished, and re-inked... article.
Much verbiage about one simple task.

What's another word for 'knob'?

 I regret that I apparently did not snap a 'before' picture of this knob before restoring it.  It was actually quite a lot of work, tho I don't think the time or effort shows. It's not perfect, but I didn't think it needed to be a show piece. It's a control; it'll just get dirty again.

 This was just something to do that let me feel like I was making progress, while I am slightly stumped (for lack of a pilot lamp!) on the table feed.  I don't want to really dig into the feed  until I have got the motor drive licked.

 So anyway: before, the speed knob was scratched, dull, and covered in a hard film which no doubt combined thirty years of machining fluids, various dusts, and skin cruft (oils, perspiration, cells).

 The first thing I tried to do was match it to a nice knob from The Knob Collection*, but alas, no such luck.

 So I decided to restore the knob.  First, I scrubbed it with a toothbrush and some Greased Lightning.  That got it clean after multiple tries.  I think I also had a session with IPA in there.  I'd have used acetone too, but I am out at the moment.

 The top surface was easy to polish on the buffer, but the side flutes were less fun.  I managed a fair job with a small buff wheel intended for a dremel, chucked in the drill press. This I charged with soft green compound intended for hard plastics and soft metals.  Same stuff I used for the top with the bench buffer.

 The line where the flutes meet the skirt of the knob were a pure S.O.B. to get the polishing compound out of.  Managed that with paper towels, cotton swabs, and elbow grease, eventually.

 The white markings looked awful.  I dug out the circle and the line's groove with a dental pick, then cleaned them with a bristle brush and IPA.  I would have preferred acetone for this.

 After that, I carefully introduced some white nail polish to the dot... but when I attempted to ink the line, I got it everywhere.  New plan: fill in the line properly, let it be a bit messy, then wet-sand the excess off, and repolish the top since that part is easy.  This we then do.

 I thought I was done, but now I've seen this photo, it looks like there is a little more to take off, because the line isn't really that wide.  One more brief session ought to do it.  The thin line looks better, very sharp.  Maybe I should not have posted this until I got a truly final photo, but does anyone really care that much about my knob?

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 * It's about one 2lb coffee can full, but with all of them in bags; I won it from the door raffle at a radio collector's meeting I only went to once.

 ~≈{👁}≈~