Jump Ringer-Burr free cuts

Jewelry Discussion
1

Joan I have several suggestions for elimination of the burrs you
are getting.

  1. Try using a new blade (dull blades will produce burrs). 2.
    Generously lubricate your coil with Gesswein’s “Lube Stick” or
    Rio’s “Bur-Life” in stick form. 3. Place the blade (surrounded
    by its guard/guide) in the coil holder before starting your flex-
    shaft. Run your flexshaft at top speed - about 18,000 rpm - and
    feed it through the coil rapidly. Take your foot off the pedal
    as soon as you’ve completed the cut. If you continue to run it
    you’ll only be generating additional heat which you don’t want to
    do. Let it come to a complete stop before retracting it from the
    coil holder. 4. To clean your jump rings you can pickle them or
    put them into an ultrasonic machine. If you don’t have these, you
    can also put them into a screw top jar containing hot water and a
    little dishwasher detergent (no soap). Close the jar and shake it
    for about 10 seconds. Pour the contents into a strainer and run
    hot water through it. Your jump rings will sparkle! 5. If the
    wire you’re using is dead soft, that could contribute to the burr
    problem. Try 1/4 or 1/2 hard if you can work with them.

A sharp blade with no missing teeth is extremely important. For
economy you want to treat it as well as you can. 1,2 & 3 above do
just that.

As a last resort you could tumble the rings for about 15
minutes. A few strokes with a diamond nail file will also remove
any slight burr.

The blades that come with Jump Ringer are American made and are
the finest quality for this purpose. Gesswein, Rio Grande and
many other tool dealers carry them as replacement blades.

Hope this is of help to you.

Ray

2

Wini - Jump Ringer blades are .010" (.25mm) thick. Any thinner
would render them too fragile for this purpose. Incidentally,
because the cut is narrower than 99% of the wire used for jump
rings, the finished rings will never nest together. When you pick
up one ring you get one ring, not a bunch of rings hooked
together. I suggest that you not anneal the wire at all. However
if you must, do it after cutting the coil into jump rings - not
before. Winding harder wire onto the same size mandrel will
produce a larger diameter coil so to maintain the same size rings
you’ll have to use a slightly smaller size mandrel. As far as
hardening the wire is concerned, I suggest that you ask your wire
supplier if he can give you a heat hardenable wire with all the
same characteristics (color, karat etc.) as what you are now
using. If he can, follow his directions to the letter. Another way
to harden the jump rings (although not as effective) is to
burnish them overnight in steel shot. This will work harden the
wire somewhat. Use shot that is much smaller or much larger than
the inside diameter of the rings - you don’t want them to lodge
in the rings. After tumbling the steel and gold may easily be
separated using a magnet. Hope this is of help to you. Ray