Mass finishing for the fledgling jeweler

To all, thanks for the kudos on the book. There are so many pieces to mass finishing, it takes a bit to figure out what your best answer is. When I was doing production, I ran several different tumblers to get a high polish. And there are a few tricks you pick up in the process. What I tried to do with the book is to take a high tech process and reduce the complexity and expense to something regular jewelers could put in practice.
Judy H

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Looking for my copy to arrive tomorrow!!

Janet - you may be working too hard. The pin finishing from your caster mostly takes off investment. When you get your castings, run for 3 to 5 hours in a medium abrasive media, rinse and using a fine abrasive, run for 3 to 4 hours - each of these in your vibratory tumbler. Then apply patina, let cure/dry, and run for 20 minutes in the fine abrasive to remove the excess. Then to burnish, run for 30 to 45 minutes max in your rotary with steel. You are done and didn’t breathe any of the crap.

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Interesting. I’ll try that. I have some medium media, and next tome I’ll see what it looks like after that. Thanks!

Judy I have your book so now have more questions :)) If you have time can you please email me? elliottky@yahoo.com Melissa

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Judy, question for you. What are you using for patina?
Thanks, Deb

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Late answering - usually LOS, dry bits. Also Gosiba, los gel. Whatever is handy. Each one works differently.

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