Dearest Orchidians –
I need the minds of many to see what I am missing heRe:
A student came to me last night with the following story:
She had several pieces that she had made and wanted to tumble. The
pieces were several sterling silver bracelets, and several bracelets
with beads and wire work on them. She has a double barrel tumbler, so
put the bangles in one and the beaded pieces in the other. Each
barrel has stainless shot. She cleaned both barrels completely, mixed
Rio’s Super Sunsheen Burnishing Compound into water in a third
container, poured half of the liquid in each barrel and set them
tumbling. They ran for about an hour and a half, she turned the
tumbler off, but did not opened them up when the phone rang. The call
was lengthy (don’t think this had anything to do with it, but…)
so she didn’t get back to the tumbler for about an hour and a half.
When she pulled the work out, the beaded pieces were shiny but the
sterling bangles were copper plated. She said that they were really
beautiful, shiny copper.
My thinking was that somehow that barrel must have gotten some acid
in it of some sort to make it copper plate the silver, but a second
student commented that when she also recently tumbled some work with
a very similar situation, her work had a copper tinge to it when she
pulled it out.
Both of these students are intermediate/advanced students who have
been doing metalwork and tumbling for some time. Both said that they
had never had this happen before. One bought her Super Sunsheen
Burnishing Compound a couple of years ago and the other purchased
hers within the last month.
Please help !! What am I missing? Thank you all in advance. I am
truly grateful for this resource.
Deb Jemmott
Puzzled Teacher