Acetylene torch to melt silver?

Jewelry Discussion
1

Best grinding wheel to remove a lot of silver

2

Mizzy wheel for abrasive. (Also gives a nice texture). Slightly faster would be a large coarse burr, or rotary file. With those, use some sort of shield to keep the filings contained. They are sharp tiny needles, and in your eyes or just on skin, they will be quite uncomfortable.

Best is a coarse lapidary grade sanding belt, cooled with the same sort of water cooling as would be used for lapidary work. The water keeps the silver from heating up, which otherwise happens quite fast and limits how fast you can work. The water also catches the grindings.
Peter

1 Like
3

I can’t connect the title of this topic with the question. Peter’s advice works for me. When I need to remove a lot of metal, I use my lapidary expansion sanding wheel with a 220 grit belt and water for coolant and to wash away the swarf. I then use a series of diamond resin wheels to refine the finish prior to a tripoli and rouge polish. This works great, but does wear the resin wheels. The coolant water is contained in a sump where I can recover the metal from time to time. I also use Eve medium grit rubber abrasive wheels to do fine profiling prior to polishing. As a result, I don’t really use my files as much as some do. You do have to be careful using these wheels on a soldered joint as they can pick the solder out if you aren’t careful. Good luck…Rob

1 Like
4

Also, never put non-ferrous metals to a standard grinding wheel. They will ruin the wheel as they will fill the pores of the stone. Grinding wheels are for ferrous metals only.
For precious metals, a course file is your choice for hogging off material. Then refine with finer files and abrasive papers.

1 Like
5

I agree about the lapidary expanding drum but when I need to remove some metal in a hurry I use at least 60X on an 8” drum then go through all the subsequent steps.

6

I’ve done a fair amount of inlay, in silver and I used grinding wheels to take it down to the metal. I used a wheel “dresser” to level out the wheel and clear any metal. Thank goodness for diamond wheels. Expanding drums with
60X on an 8” drum eats up some metal in a hurry!