Granulation Sieves

Jewelry Discussion
1

Hi all,

Ever wanted to make your own granules but been put off by not being
able to size them properly? If so, read on. If not, time for the
delete key!

After working through the project in the first of Ronda Coryell’s
new Argentium DVDs, I decided I wanted to do more with granulation.
Then I found out how much purchased granules cost ($300/ozt !?!) and
decided to embark on making my own. Here’s where I hit a snag: how
to separate the granules by size.

Orchid and the 'net to the rescue…in the form of Brian Meek’s nice
page

http://tinyurl.com/6kpu9w

on how to make your own small sieve stack to separate the granules.
A challenge Brian overcame was where to get a wide range of mesh
sizes to do a reasonable job of separating the sizes. How could I do
the same? How about McMaster-Carr (http://www.mcmaster.com). They
have metal and plastic mesh in a bewildering array of sizes. After
much flailing about, I figured out which of their meshes would make
a good set of stacks according to Brian’s design.

Here’s the rub: the minimum purchase of each mesh is waaaaaay more
than I need to make a single sieve stack.

Now, will Orchid come to the rescue again? If there are a few more
people around who would be interested in a set of mesh to make their
own stack like Brian’s, I will buy the mesh, cut it into kits and
send them off to everyone. 2in./50mm squares would trim up nicely to
fit into plastic, screw-together jars that Brian describes in his
how-to. I figure $25/set (including postage, via PayPal) would get
us 16 sizes (1.9mm to 0.4mm in 0.1mm steps). The meshes would be a
mix of plastic or stainless steel depending on which was the least
expensive way to buy a particular size.

If enough people are interested that I can do more than cover my
out-of-pocket costs, I’ll send the extra to Hanuman to support
Orchid…and in any case I’ll send Brian the extra meshes he wished
for at the end of his how-to as a thank you for sharing his idea.

If you are interested, please send me an email off list.

Thanks,
Tom Colson

PS: Ronda’s DVD is excellent and I look forward to working through
the other three in the series. (http://www.rondacoryell.com)

2

Hi Tom:

Glad you liked my granulation sieve. For something that was cooked
up out of scrap, it gets a surprising number of web-hits. There are
more things coming, once the SNAG conference is done, and my head
unwinds.

I’ve got a link for Small Parts, and their selection of sieve cloth
as part of the instruction page. The reason being that their minimums
are much lower than McMaster’s are. It looks like you might end up
with a slightly finer resolution than I did, but was that the main
reason for going with McMaster? If not, Small Parts is a cheaper way
to fly.

I also looked at McMaster’s woven wire cloth selection a minute ago.
They have a 6x6" sample pack of various sizes up from about 1mm for
$23. Not cheap, but not horrible either.

For whatever that all’s worth.
Glad you enjoyed it.
Brian.