Hi folks, I like the idea of steel wool and safety glasses. I have
two ideas that work for me so far. One involves steel wool in a
different form. My wife bought some adhesive backed steel wool
sheets that were intended for use on a power sander (orbital type
hand-held wonder). She used them for finish work between coats of
polyurethane. I took one, cut it into 1 inch squares and put it on a
chuck normally used for cutoff discs. I even left the adhesive back
on it. It didn’t last forever but it sure did work wonders on some
hand textured copper I’d worked up for a pendant. Got into the nooks
and crannies really well. Nothing else was doing it like I wanted.
Another experiment that went well for similar work used a q-tip or
half of one. I’d cut the paper shaft in half and chucked it up,
cotton side exposed, into my Dremel Jacob’s chuck. Then I stuck it
into some paste silver polish and, using a fairly slow speed to
avoid painting my chest with polish, I proceeded to polish some hard
to get at details on copper. This worked really well also. Both
ideas absolutely require the safety glasses. I too have had the
experience of getting rust scraped off the ol’ cornea and, while the
doc was a very good looking young lady, I found it hard to maintain
my dignity while someone is crawling around on my eyeball. I had
been wearing safety glasses while grinding steel and still managed
to get some in the eye. You’ve really got to be careful working
around metal and/or chemicals. 'Nuff said. Peace folks! I am really
learning a lot from these forums. Thanks for all the replies to my questions.
Mike
Eye protection is still essential and I wear a mask here