Thrumming with yarn or twine
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Take a large sewing needle or a darning needle, open up the top of the eye with your jeweler’s saw, and wrap the appropriate grit emery paper through the slit, chuck it into your handpiece and sand and polish through your steps
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My suggestion - smooth out the offending areas before casting. You may find that beauty suppliers, that supply nail salons, have some suitable very fine finishing and polishing utensils. In my experience the surfaces of castings are direct reflection of the surface of the invested patterns.
You may find sections of women’s stocking cut about 1-1.5” wide as a loop around the outer tips of the thumb and fingers useful for polishing difficult to access parts of the pattern.
These can be charged with abrasives used for polishing of plastics and waxes.
Picture your hand as a fretsaw frame for the band of hose used as the blade.
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wait, dip into grit as in a powder?? you can buy sanding grit in powder form?!
Look at tumbling grit. You can also buy pumice this way…Rob
See lapidary grits
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Lapidary is probably a better way to search. You can buy small recharge kits that include three different grits and a polishing powder. Thanks…Rob
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I love escapement files and have many. They work well for coarse metal removal in tight spaces.
Search for “Anderson Miniature Sawframe“ to find miniature saw frames. I bought a set of three. I tried just cutting down jeweler’s blades, but the area with teeth is too brittle and breaks constantly. I discovered that diamond coated wire is not as brittle and can be cut into smaller lengths to fit in one of these little frames. This works well for me to get into tight spaces. I also use sandpaper backed with packing tape in these little saw frames, and I also use butcher’s twine charged with polishing compound for really small items. I suppose one could use CA glue to stick tumbling abrasive to butcher’s twine for more aggressive metal removal, but I’ve never tried.
I also make my own sanding twigs from toothpicks, CA glue and the type of abrasive powder used in rock tumblers. One can easily find “refill” kits containing four different grits. One of these kits has enough abrasive to last a very long time when used for this purpose.
For polishing in tight spaces I also learned “thrumming” techniques, i.e. using butcher’s twine charged with polishing compound. I screwed several eyelets into the side of my bench, one for each grit, to hang bundles of twine upon. Using bundles permits using anywhere from a single cord up to as many are required to fill the space being polished. One stretches the cord tight and gently rubs the jewelry item back and forth upon it to polish inside tight spaces. Single cords are limp and can be very difficult to thread through a tight space, so I coat the end with CA glue to stiffen it. I then use a craft knife to trim it at an angle to leave a sharp tip that’s easy to feed through a small space.
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For stiffening the ends of string, clear nail polish works well. This is generally what pearl stringers use.
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Greg
Glad to see that you are getting so much use out of my miniature sawframes. I don’t have much trouble breaking blades. Just from my usual carelessness. Be sure to put the blade between the white metal clip and the black frame. This eliminates twisting the blade under the screw.
I use the saw a lot in stone setting. After I have started bending the prongs, I might find I need the seat to be a little deeper under one prong, or a prong might be pinching the stone on top too much. I go in with an 8/0 blade to remove a little metal. With the little saw, I don’t have a big frame hitting me in the face when I am working close with a loupe.
Dave Anderson
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Hi Elliot! I’ll have to give fingernail polish a try.
I use CA glue for so many uses in the studio that I began buying it in “combat size” bottles. I use both the regular formulation and the slow-set gel gap-filling formula, and I use accelerator to make it set faster when needed.
Hi Dave!
I’m absolutely delighted to be able to personally thank you for creating these incredibly useful little saw frames. THANKS!!!
They’re so useful and versatile that I recently bought another set of three so I don’t have to switch out diamond blades for sandpaper or butcher’s twine. I love being able to dedicate individual frames to specific uses/grits/blade sizes.
As for blade breakage, perhaps you’re using better quality blades than I?
I’m still trying to use up a large assortment of cheap import blades I bought over a year ago bundled with a German style saw frame. They break unless I’m very careful to properly tension them even when used in my full sized saw frames.
I experimented last year trying to find the ideal saw frame for me and tried out the generic German, Knew Concepts, Haymaker, and Green Lion. I even have one that’s a fancy piece of Art Nouveau sculpture I made from brass and steel in my machine shop.
In the end I went back to the 3” size generic German frame with a handle I custom made from tropical hardwood specifically to fit my hand. I find this style of frame easiest for me to properly tension; because it’s lighter than the Haymaker and Knew Concepts frames; and because it feels more natural to me than my second choice, which was the Green Lion.
Do you have a recommendation on quality saw blades that are not so expensive as to require putting up my firstborn child as loan collateral just to afford them?
I see some people swear by German blades, others Swiss, still others recommend specific brands like Pike, Herkules, Antelope, Laser, or Glardon Vallorbe. I looked at buying an assortment of the Pike brand blades and experienced cardiac arrest from sticker shock when I saw the cart total.
I’ve only been at this full time for a couple of years now. I welcome recommendations from more experienced pros on great blades that don’t cost a fortune…
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