Are 3M radial bristle discs bit pricy?

Hi all,

I recently bought a set of 3M radial bristle discs from Rio and I am
very pleased with them. They work great for sanding and polishing
silver. They will remove fire scale like they say they will and the 1
micron disc puts a very nice polish on the silver. However, they are
expensive compared to polishing compound and seem to wear rather
quickly. Maybe that was because I was polishing everything I could
get my hands on, including a piece of opal rough, to see what would
happen.

John Spiech
@John_Spiech

John,

Sounds like you polished everything in the studio? Are you using the
larger radial bristle disks meant for the benchtop polisher?

Couple of things to consider and this goes for the flexshaft variety
as well.

Group them in parties of three or more. The added surface area will
help you work faster and more efficiently.

If you used polishing compounds for all the work you performed,
sounds like you would be going back and forth cleaning off all that
polish. With Radial Bristle discs, you don’t have to clean the metal
between discs. I find that a huge time savings myself, especially for
smaller work.

What speed are you running the discs at? They like higher speeds,
whereas the new FX wheels like slower ones. The discs won’t wear out
as fast with higher speeds and in a bunch.

karen christians

Karen Christians
M E T A L W E R X
50 Guinan St.
Waltham, MA 02451
Ph. 781/891-3854 Fax 3857
http://www.metalwerx.com/
Jewelry/Metalarts School & Cooperative Studio