I was recently given some older stakes and hammer’s when an friend
passed away. He was a older silversmith that taught me the craft,
and all of them are in need of cleaning. I have emory paper up to
2500 and have the normal buffing compound and will use butchers wax
to protect them after being cleaned. Am I on the right track ? Is
there any tricks?
Thank you for the in advance.
Jim Caning
The best way that I have found for repolishing stakes is to use a
rubber abrasive wheel from 3M. They are also called deburring wheels.
Once you have all the dents and scratches out of it, you can use a
stitched buff with emory and then tripolee and finally rouge if you
want to make them like chrome. Alot of the older stakes are cast iron
so you may get some pitting, but that won’t affect there usability.
You can do the same with the hammers.
The best way to keep them shiny is to use them!
Thanks,
Kevin
If they need a lot of cutting I’d try one of those expandable rubber
drums with whatever grit belts seem appropriate. Finish off with
platinum tripoli and zam perhaps. I’d stay away from any hard
grinding wheel. I take it you just want to resurface not reshape
them.
Hi Jim,
It depends on how much “cleaning” they need. If it’s just a little
surface rust, there’s this absolutely great buffing compound called
"stainless compound". It’ll take a 220 grit finish down to a mirror
in about 30 seconds flat. On steel or cast iron. Regrettably, it
doesn’t do squat to non ferris metals or precious metals, but it’ll
polish your stakes like nobody’s business. Allcraft has it.
If they need more than that, get some sanding disks for a right-angle
grinder, use those to get the surface back to where you want it, and
then stainless from there. When I was doing a lot of stake polishing,
I had access to a very large (14" dia) floor-standing buffer for the
stainless buffs, but I’ve done it successfully with 6" treated muslin
wheels on a normal jewelry buffer, or even by mounting the buffs on
my angle grinder. (not fun, and not recommended if you’re not already
very good with an angle grinder.)
Regards,
Brian.
Some years ago I found, I dont know what they are called. They are
sort of stepped abrasive cloth for an angle grinder, available in 3
grits, 60 / 80 / 120.
absolutely fantastic!!!
Solved a lot of problems.
David
jewellerydavidcruickshank.com.au
I’d call that a flap wheel, although there’s very little flap in
them. They make short work of a 3 foot sword also… just if anyone
was interested to know 
Regards Charles A.