For the project I've been working on, I'm needing to polish a lot of little brass pieces.
I'd considered picking up a Harbor Frieght Bench Grinder/Polisher, but even at HF, they're 60$ and are single speed (3600 rpm or so).
I was out in the garage the other day and it occurred to me that I could just chuck the polishing wheel into my Drill press. It's horizontal instead of vertical and for large pieces, it'd be difficult to get into a good polishing position, but for small stuff, it seems to work just fine.
I did a little reading around on wood working sites, and apparently, this is a pretty common thing to do when you've got the occasional small polishing job.
There were a few comments about how the lateral load might wear your DP bearings faster, but most everyone indicated that that wouldn't be a problem for most polishing jobs as long as you don't press really hard, which you shouldn't do anyway generally.
Plus, my drill press is variable speed (620 to 3100 rpm) and the slower speeds work really well for polishing.
Just thought I'd pass it along.
I'd been doing all the polishing by hand with Brasso. It worked, but damn it's a LOT of elbow grease. Using a polishing wheel and a little polishing compound does the job tons faster and much nicer!