Dear Sharron,
The 3M paper I use doesn’t produce any grit to speak of, so no
worries there. I use 600, 1000, then 2500 grit. With the 2500 finish
I don’t need any compounds other than final rouge. My buffer only
has rouge so it doesn’t get any contamination. I don’t like to have
to clean in-between either and I found this works for me. One extra
note, I use separate files, papers and buffs for my platinum.
Marta
Dear Sam in Tucson,
Thanks for your advice but what exactly is a drum sander? Is it one
of those small things that fit on a flex shaft? Those seam like work
to me with all that fiddling around changing those small little round
sand paper disks. Can you clarify it. At the moment I’m making a
lot of necklace/chain items with lots of loose parts and strange
joins and polishing compound catches everywhere. I will try and use
your advice about the sonic cleaners and see if I can get that set up
beside my polishing machine.
Many thanks from Sharron in Saigon
Thanks for your advice but what exactly is a drum sander? Is it one of those small things that fit on a flex shaft?
He mentioned a drum sander working wet. Sounds like what Ruth and I
have here. A basic (8") Lortone lapidary arbor driving a set of any
type of grinding or sanding wheel, with a water feed dripping down on
the wheels, and little petshop fish tank hoses and valves distributing
the water. We have a curved-face diamond wheel, and a couple of
bristle wheels for ‘satin’ finishing.
The fourth wheel is an 8" rubber drum with a replaceable sanding belt.
Great for doing the edges of sheet metal shapes.
Brian
B r i a n � A d a m
www.adam.co.nz/workshops
This is a very good point! If you leave the bobbing or tripoly on
and then use rouge, you are “dragging” the heavier cutting abrasive
into the final polishing. This can leave scratch marks in the pieces
from the more aggressive cut, which in a sense, decreases the quality
of the rouge step. It would be the same as in mass finishing using the
same solution (water and compound) in the heavy cut, fine cut
(deburring) and then steel shot finish. The heavier cutting abrasive
will always stay in the mix and WILL drag through the polishing
stages. At the very least, one should clean the pieces between the
cutting and final polishing stages. Very good point! Joe Lovato
Neutec/USA
Dear Sharron, The drum sander is a large wheel (4"wide by 8" or 6"
diameter) which I use to file large ( relatively) concave surfaces. I
run a drip water cooling system over the wheels so the piece I’m
working on does not get hot. These are routinely used in lapidary in
varying grits. I also am able to use it on some of my chain designs
and use it in place of the hand file through most of my emery work. I
still go over everything with an emery stick as that is the surest way
to keep an ungroved surface in the final finish. One thing I love to
do with chain is tumble polishing. I find this to be a good substitute
for tripoli and even white diamond but will still hand rouge. the
chains can be completely assembled then thrown into a tumbler over
night, washed the next day and run the following night with the next
grit. They can be oxidized prior to the second round. This frees up
days which can be put to making more chains. The tumblers also run a
drip water system and are quick to refresh with the use of sieves
large enough to remove the jewelry from the media.
Sam, Tucson
Hi Sharron: This Joe from Cranbrook (ex Sardis) not Sam. Try first a
small tumbler to clean and polish your small stuff - it might be a
bit slower, but quite effective. Use steel shot for tumbling medium.
Drum sanders (4-6-8" diameter) are fine but small stuff is not easy to
handle on a drum sander.
Regards,
Joe
@Joe_Bokor3