Jump ringer problems

Jewelry Discussion
1

my apologies for posting group wide, I have misfiled my direct email
for Mr. Grossman, if anyone else has any ideas please reply away
Thanks

Hello Mr. Grossman, I purchased your jump ringer system and was
initially thrilled. I am now having what seem to be insurmountable
difficulties using the system. I keep not just breaking the blade but
shattering the blade. Initially the cutting goes smooth as silk then
literally KA BOOM all goes awry. I have trouble shot all things
I can , blade going in direction of rotation; blade arbor secure but
not overtight; blade secure in the hand piece chuck. I am stumped. Do
you have any ideas? The most recent trouble was with coils wrapped
from 14g dead soft sterling round wire 6mm mandrel approximatly half
the length of the coil holder. Thanks for your help in advance

— Irene White

2

Hi Gang, A little follow up on my note yesterday…

My new Jump Ringer blades arrived as expected from Rio yesterday,
and I set out to knock out a few more chains for a show next weekend
(yikes!). By the way, I’m using #12 half round sterling wire, wrapped
around a ~6mm mandrel.

Yesterday I emphasized the need to use plenty of lubricant, in my
case Burr Life. What I didn’t mention is that I have been using the
blue, solid (waxy) form. Even with shorter coils, it occurred to me
that this lubricant, even liberally applied, could become spent by
the time I got halfway through the coil.

I decided to get out my bottle of liquid Burr Life and run a “bead”
down the slot of the cutting jig with the coil in place. The thought
was by applying the lubricant to the full length of the coil, the
effect would be sustained for the duration of the cut. It was a big
improvement, but then I encountered the inevitable drawback.

Of course, the cutting process produces a significant volume of
silver dust, or filings. The liquid Burr Life causes all the
jumprings and tools to become oily, and the filings to stick to
everything! Putting on my “thinking cap”, I decided to place the
links in a kitchen strainer and leave them in the ultrasonic for a
while. A little help, but now I’ve got silver filings floating on the
surface, and I’m sure at the bottom of my ultrasonic, and I’ll have
to clean it out… trying somehow to recover the filings.

I ended up taking the links, strainer and all, and spraying down
with household cleaner and running under hot water in the kitchen
sink. Didn’t recover the filings, but the rings were clean enough to
use… but still had some filings on them! After finishing the chains
I run them for a few hours in a vibrating tumbler with stainless
steel shot and burnishing liquid, which cleaned and polished them
well. Someday I’ll have to clean out the tumbler and try to figure
out how to recover all the precious metals (and a peridot gemstone
lost in there if there’s anything left of it) from the burnishing
liquid.

In conclusion… finally… I found the use of liquid Burr Life,
applied directly to the coil, to do a much better job than solid Burr
Life applied to the blade, but the clean up is a nuisance. If anyone
else has any thoughts/experience on this quandary, and recovering
silver filings from bearing liquids, I’d love to hear about it!

All the best,
Dave
Dave Sebaste
Sebaste Studio and
Carolina Artisans’ Gallery
Charlotte, NC (USA)
dave@sebaste.com

3

Hi Dave,

I’ve been using plain old liquid dishwashing detergent. Wet the tip
of your finger with it & run it down the top of the coil before
putting the top on the coil holder. Some of the saw dust will stick
to the links, but not enough to cause any problems. The detergent
doesn’t interfere with fusing or soldering.

Doing things this way leaves 99% of the filings on the bench where
they’re easy to clean up.

Dave

4

Dave,

Thanks for the heads up on the jump ringer. I, like you, feel that it
is a very good investment and sure beats cutting those little
fellows by hand.

I am oh so glad to hear that it is not just me that was having
problems with the blade! I’ve already done the “hit the jig” with
the blade and had to replace it also. I think that you do this only
once if lucky as now I am very cautious to see that the blade is
where it is suppose to be BEFORE I step on the peddle.

I also use burr life solid and will try the liquid as I have some
here. I use an old stainless steel confectioner’s sugar container
which is a cup with a strainer for a lid to wash the rings, so I can
shake them up and rinse them (with simple green) without losing any.

The thing that still plagues me is the burrs left by the blade on
the rings. I find that I still have to file (ugh!) them down after
closing them to asure that they will not catch in the clothing of
customers. After my pieces are finished, I place them in a tumbler
with burnishing soap and stainless shot for two hours, but the sharp
edges are still there. Any help would be greatly appreciated if you
have encountered the same thing.

About recovery of metal shavings. Have you tried several layers of
cheesecloth? I would use the same piece over and over until it
becomes heavy with shavings and then send it in to the refiner.

Thanks again so much for the help!

Suzanne

5

Hi Gave, I always appreciate your posts. It is a delight to try to
help you. Try:

*A large mayonnaise or pickle jar large enough to hold the liquid
you need to clean

*A plastic funnel about the size of a coffee filter that will sit
atop the jar

*A coffee filter Pour the contents of the tumbler liquid or
ultrasonic into the filter. Allow the filter to dry.

You can add the whole dry filter to your collection of old buffs etc
to be sent to the refiner eventually or burn the filter away
(carefully - maybe outside in the BBQ) or lightly brush the filings
from the dry filter. Those first year chemistry labs finally become
practical. Low tech - but it works!

I also have a little stainless steel strainer that fits the drain of
my kitchen style sink. It keeps stuff bigger than filings from
disappearing on me. I found it in a Chinese kitchen supplies store.
Karen

6 
    In conclusion... finally... I found the use of liquid Burr
Life, applied directly to the coil, to do a much better job than
solid Burr Life applied to the blade, but the clean up is a
nuisance. If anyone else has any thoughts/experience on this
quandary, and recovering silver filings from bearing liquids, I'd
love to hear about it!

G’day Dave; Whilst I don’t know what Burr Life is, I suspect that
it an oil or wax of some sort. So, to get rid of it and clinging
metal dust you could put the rings in a small a kitchen strainer and
pour petrol over them, and wave the strainer about in the dish of
petrol, but of course you’d have to take the elementary precautions
against fire and inhalation of fumes. This way you can separate the
filings and metal dust for later retrieval.

Another thought is that I wonder if it is really worthwhile to
recover silver dust. I have been doing so, but wonder if it is worth
the bother, with silver being fairly cheap. One must drag a
powerful magnet through it several times - and you’d be surprised how
much iron is there too. (I cover the magnet in tissue or a corner of
a polythene bag to make removal of iron easier) If melting it, it is
better to have some solid scrap silver in the crucible first.
Another way to deal with silver dust is to dissolve it in nitric
acid, then add common salt solution (sodium chloride). shake the
vessel to coagulate the precipitate of pure silver chloride, decant
off the liquid, wash the precipitate, dissolve in cyanide, and use a
small DC current and stainless electrodes to get pure (fine) silver.
The copper in any sterling will have been disposed of as liquid
copper nitrate which isn’t precipitated by chlorides. But unless
you really have heaps, is it worth it? – Cheers for now, John Burgess;
@John_Burgess2 of Mapua Nelson NZ

7

Dave-

I went through the same process with my Koil Kutter soon after I got
it and came to the same conclusion that you did: lubricant down the
coil is the way to go. I went down to the local tool supplier and for
about $7 bought a pint bottle of “Tapmatic Natural Cutting Fluid”
(ITWProBrands)
. The stuff is innocuous, doesn’t smell particularly bad, and best of
all, is easy to clean up with water. The next stop was the hobby shop
for a small plastic squeeze bottle with a blunt needle tip (tip
smaller in diameter than the slot in the coil (koil?)
holder)(http://www.eclayfactory.com/clayfac_surfacedecor.html#Other%2
0Useful %20Items) . In use, I just run a very small amount of cutting
fluid down the length of the coil and then cut away. After an
extended session of cutting, the coil holder and all get pretty slimy
with cutting fluid, but since this stuff is essentially modified
soybean oil (you can find a link to this product on unitedsoybean.org
of all places!), I don’t worry about getting it on me. After I’ve cut
a bunch of rings, they get dumped into a plastic jar with a few
squirts of Simple Green (http://www.simplegreen.com) & some water,
and then vigorously shaken (not stirred) to clean off the cutting
fluid and remove a lot of the bur left by the saw. If the Simple
Green doesn’t foam up, I know I didn’t use enough, so I drain the
water and do another cycle. Finally, the rings get dumped onto a
towel and blotted dry. Ready to go!

As you noted, this process doesn’t get all of the bur off of every
ring. I don’t sweat this though, since almost all of my rings end up
in chains which are tumbled with shot. The shot gets every last bit
off.

Do you cut your coils unsupported? If you do, you might try cutting
them with a wooden mandrel still in place. If the coil is supported,
the blade can’t push the last little bit of metal out of the way and
leave it hanging on the edge. (This is sort of like drilling through
a piece of wood with another piece behind it to make sure you cut a
nice clean edge as you break through the back surface.) Also, if
you’ve got enough cutting fluid in there so the saw is really cutting
chips out and not smearing it’s way through the wire, you’ll get a
lot less of a bur.

As far as recovering the chips, I don’t bother since I work in
sterling and the metal weight to be gained just isn’t worth the
trouble. If you want to recover the chips, simply work over a sheet
of plastic (a piece of drafting Mylar perhaps?) to catch the chips
thrown by the saw as you are cutting and use a coarse and fine sieve
stack to separate the rings from the chips after cleaning.

Hope this helps…

Regards,
Tom Colson

…sitting here hoping that whoever invented the rubber barreled
tumbler and all of those special little shapes of steel shot got
rich. what a boon to the rest of us!

8

I have been using the orignal jump ringer, by Ray Grossman, who has
helped me throught the steps of getting the machine working right.

I have found that it you do not put enough burr life on the piece
and if your blade is dull you will get burs.

My suggestion is to use new sharp blades on the heavy gage metal (14
and lower). Once they start getting dull they will sound more
"growely" like regular saw blades. Then use the duller blades on
lighter gage wire.

Sometimes the burrs are unavoidable. Get a good emory board from a
beauty supply store and give the line a brush to remove the burs
during the assembly of the chain.

9

I have not used the liquid but I use the solid on the coil not on
the blade. The dust that the machine gives off is so minimal, I have
done yield test. But if you want to recover it why not just place
the dust in a crucible and melt it.

10 
Another thought is that I wonder if it is really worthwhile to
recover silver dust.

That thought has occurred to me. :slight_smile: I’ve come to the conclusion
that any day’s accumulation isn’t worth the effort, but after ten
year’s worth of days, it could add up. Add in my scraps, old worn
buffs, etc, and one day I hope to have a refining payday. At this
point I’m just throwing it all in a collection bin, and when it is
full someday, I’ll send it in. I do go back to my scrap pile quite
often for various purposes, doing my own form of recycling, but the
“dirty” stuff is just accumulating for a rainy day.

Also, I’m doing a lot more gold work these days, so an increasing
percentage of the dust is gold. The refiner will differentiate
between the two, and while the silver might be the greater volume,
the gold may have more value. I keep the clean scrap segregated, but
I’ve given up trying to keep the “sweeps” separate.

I have to admit I’ve been looking at the plywood floor in the
studio, wondering whether to try and recover the metal dust around my
bench next time I sweep… and leaving that question unresolved has
given me just cause to procrastinate about sweeping. :slight_smile:

All the best,
Dave
Dave Sebaste
Sebaste Studio and
Carolina Artisans’ Gallery
Charlotte, NC (USA)
dave@sebaste.com
http://www.CarolinaArtisans.com

11 
In conclusion... finally... I found the use of liquid Burr Life,
applied directly to the coil, to do a much better job than solid
Burr Life applied to the blade, but the clean up is a nuisance. If
anyone else has any thoughts/experience on this quandary, and
recovering silver filings from bearing liquids, I'd love to hear
about it!

Dear Dave, I don’t have experience with the liquid bur life, but,
like you, I put on my thinking cap and came up with this thought.
Why not rub the coiled wire with the dry bur life before mounting it
in the holder. In that way the lubricant will be active for the full
length of the coil. Just my thought and if it works do let me know.
Dr. JZ Dule PS You may remember me since you sent me a very gracious
e-mail when I posted my explanation to a query regarding soldering,
brazing and welding.

12

One thing that has worked for me after the rings were cut was to
string them loosely on a wire and tumble them in steel shot before
integrating them into chain or whatever. Later when complete I
repeat the tumbling, this is on a vibratory type. Has always worked
the burrs off for me.

Teresa

13 
The thing that still plagues me is the burrs left by the blade on
the rings.

Hi Suzanne! Hmmm… my guess is that two hours in the tumbler is
insufficient. Try tripling that time. You can’t tumble 'em too long!
Mine go in with the burrs, and come out nice and supple and shiny!
Sure beats trying to hand finish/polish chain! Since the vibrating
tumbler it a “turn it on and forget about it” tool I just go on about
my business with something else. BTW, I’m using the mixed shapes of
stainless shot, if that makes any difference.

I also like that idea of multiple layers of cheesecloth to filter
filings. I had been considering paper towels, but didn’t think that
would work so well. The cheesecloth would probably allow the liquid
to run through better. I’ll give that a shot!

Thanks, Dave Arens, for your tip on the dish soap! Even if I did
decide to rinse the rings after cutting, they would clean up a heck
of a lot easier!

All the best
Dave
Dave Sebaste
Sebaste Studio and
Carolina Artisans’ Gallery
Charlotte, NC (USA)
dave@sebaste.com
http://www.CarolinaArtisans.com

14

I use solid burr life and rub it on the coil itself. It collects
between the links, right where you need it. A swish in hot water
with dishwashing liquid seems to clean it well. Liquid lubricant
sounds messy.

Dana Carlson

15

We use not only bur life on the length of the coil, but put a little
clear adhesive tape along the length. This keeps the coil tight and
reduces burrs.

-karen
Karen Christians
M E T A L W E R X
10 Walnut St.
Woburn, MA 01801
Phone:781/937-3532
Fax: 781/937-3955
http://www.metalwerx.com/
Accredited Jewelry Instruction

16

Hi Dave,

  Also, I'm doing a lot more gold work these days, so an
increasing percentage of the dust is gold. The refiner will
differentiate between the two, and while the silver might be the
greater volume, the gold may have more value. I keep the clean
scrap segregated, but I've given up trying to keep the "sweeps"
separate.

If your’e going to be cutting lots of gold coils into jrings here’s
a trick that’ll capture almost all the gold ‘saw dust’ & keep it
seperate from other sweeps.

Stop at the local Walgreens or other drug store that sells more
‘other stuff’ than drugs. Look in the aisle that has the big plastic
storage boxes. Get one that’s large enough to be able to cut the
coils in. The box’ll trap most of the saw dust & it doesn’t even
need to be cleaned after use. Just put the lid on until the next
time it’s used.

Dave

17

Hi All, Suzanne, I cut my jump rings with a saw (the jump ringer is
on our tool wish list). We have had very good success with stringing
the new rings on a plastic coated twist tie or on a electrical tie,
twist the loose ends or close the electrical tie then toss in a
rotary tumbler for 12-24 hours with 2 or 3mm ceramic beads and
burnishing solution. It does a great job of polishing and smoothing
the rough edges. When you’re happy with how they look/feel, just undo
the twist tie or cut the electrical tie and you’re good to go. I
suspect the steel shot may be a little too large to effectively get
those smaller surface areas.

Good Luck! -Mike
Mike Dibble
Black Horse Design

18 
How about petroleum jelly? Vaseline and the like?

I don’t use a jump ringer but lately have been cutting aluminum,
which is a fairly unpleasant, gummy metal to cut. I use petroleum
jelly, which I like because it stays put. I transferred the jelly to
a small glue bottle with a nozzle top and draw a bead of jelly along
the line I’m going to cut; that way I don’t have to stop and lube,
stop and lube. (The jelly seems to work; that is, it seems to
lubricate. Is it, fact, a lubricant?)

Christine in Littleton, Massachusetts, USA, where the crocus are blooming.

19

First let me apologize to all you great people for not responding
sooner. I just returned from Tucson, Quartzite and Albuquerque.

Irene White: Your problem with the blade shattering toward the end of
the cut is caused by the fact that at that point your coil is
collapsing causing the top plate to fall and the blade to suddenly
jam into the coil. The fix is simple. Insert a 3" long piece of wood
dowel into the coil - it need not be an exact fit. When tightening
the two screws on the coil holder, collapse the coil onto the dowel.
Make certain that it is supported for its full length. Now the cut
will be smooth and uniform.

Suzanne Boschen: Burrs generated at the cut are caused by two things.

  1. Worn/damaged blade. Wear is accelerated by heat so you want to
    lubricate the full length of the coil liberally, run your flex shaft
    at top speed, feed quickly and stop as soon as the cut has been
    completed. Think cool! Running your flex shaft while inserting or
    removing the blade is a sure way to damage it (or your finger).

  2. Soft wire tends to generate larger burrs than 1/2 hard wire. Try
    to purchase 1/2 hard wire from your supplier but if you cannot, there
    is an old trick that works with round wire. Securely chuck
    one end of an appropriate length of dead soft wire in your #30
    headpiece and hold the other end with a serrated parallel jaw
    pliers. While maintaining a slight tension, run your flex shaft
    machine. The wire will twist (and thus work harden) but because it is
    round, the appearance will not change. Don’t forget to use a
    slightly smaller winding mandrel because of the additional spring
    back caused by the harder wire.

In any case, as some have suggested, burrs may be removed by
tumbling. I’d like to add that by cutting the coil on a dowel, the
rings may be simply slid directly onto a piece of copper wire saving
the time of stringing them individually. Twist the ends of the wire
together and place several in your tumbler. If you want to speed up
the deburring, first use a fine abrasive medium like impregnated
plastic. Wash everything thoroughly and then burnish with stainless
steel shot.

I thank all you wonderful Orchidians who have contributed your
knowledge and experience.

Ray Grossman
Ray Grossman Inc.
Manufacturers of Jump Ringer