Polishing a PMC bracelet

My wife and I have just completed the rough work on a multi-piece
jointed PMC silver bracelet similar in style to the 1930’s heavy
Taxco designs. It consist of two alternating pieces (total 10), hinge
joined. We fabricated two polymer clay “originals”, carved and
finished them, then made silicone molds to form the pieces from PMC
3. The PMC 3 blanks were fitted and finish sanded using 300 grit
paper, then fired together to achieve uniform shrinkage, the rough
finished and burnished all pieces.

We are finally ready to do patinating and polishing before final
assembly. As you can imagine, this has been a long process, and we
don’t want to ruin what is promising to be a great piece. For most
PMC pieces, we have tumbled them to polish, then patinated, then
final rouge polished. But for this piece, we would like to achieve -
if possible - a more finished look that will resemble the hand finish
of a Taxco fabricated piece. We are wide open to all suggestions on
how to proceed to best achieve that end.

Thanx in advance for your advice,
Bob Moyer

Hi Bob,

I often work in PMC myself. There are times when I also like to have
a finish that mimics regular fabricated silver.

After tumbling, I sand the piece with varying grits of sandpaper
(coarse to finest), then use a burnisher and 3M polishing papers. I
then use a German polishing cream called Wenol Metal Polish.

This will give you a mirror finish. This is one of the skills we
must master in the Rio Rewards certification.

Hope this helps,
Laura
Laura H. Hastings
Eclectica Jewelry
http://www.rubylane.com/shops/eclectica