Polishing advice

Jamie,

Peter W Rowe As I read your post, I placed my hand in my mouth, my
toes curled, and a low moan issued from my throat. The further I
read, the harder I bit down, the more my toes curled, and the
louder the moan got. 

First, people usually just call me Peter. I might sign my posts with
my full name, but please. No need to be so formal :slight_smile: And it’s a good
thing I didn’t spell out the whole middle name, I guess… :-))

Second. Go make yourself a nice warm cup of tea please, and relax.
Yes, that story I related is real enough, but I don’t lose sleep over
it, and you shouldn’t either. I assure you the young man involved has
by now gotten on with his life for the last 22 years.

The point to telling that story was not to inspire horror or curled
toes and fingers or lurid moans. Rather, it was simply to suggest
that there are few tools that can be used in ignorance and
complacency, and especially those with higher power and higher speed
motors. Polishing machines are ubiqutious, in use in tens or hundreds
of thousands of workshops, usually without major accidents or lost
fingers. But anyone who uses them for any time, will have at least a
few minor mishaps where something either goes wrong, or just doesn’t
quite end up with the desired end result. This is not limited to
polishing machines, and polishing machines are no where near the most
dangerous devices we use (I’d suggest the automobile is much worse,
given the many people who die using one every year)

The fix is simple. Common sense, doing the required research or
getting the needed instruction, so you understand the proper and safe
use of any device you’re using. This ranges from proper methods of
holding the work for polishing, to proper methods of holding a ring
in a ring clamp when setting a stone so you don’t accidentally run a
graver through your hand, or any of the many many other things to
watch out for in a jewelry shop, or the kitchen or bathroom too, for
that matter.

So relax a bit. Just keep the point of the message in mind. Common
sense and care and awareness that almost nothing is totally safe
without them.

By the way, if you have a frequent problem with this moaning,
curling of toes and fingers, and general sense of horror, you may
wish to change your email address. Identifying yourself on the net
with a term like “gravedigger” might be having a subliminal feedback
sort of effect on your mood. Why not change it to “rainbowchaser” or
something. I’ll bet that makes you much less prone to the night
horrors sort of thing… (grin)

cheers
Peter

There is another danger associated with the use of a lathe or
polishing machine and, to a lesser degree a flexible shaft and even
an electric drill.

One of the first rules in a workshop, laboratory or studio that uses
rotating machinery should be to avoid wearing loose clothing, ties,
necklaces, rings and such. More important is to keep long hair (and
beard) confined in a net or kerchief or otherwise tied back. I
insist on this in my own workshop and for my students? Why? Imagine
bending over a spinning six inch wheel or wire brush and having your
hair contact the motor’s shaft or the spinning wheel. The hair, tie,
shirt sleeve etc. wraps around the spinning wheel or shaft and you
are pulled into a device running at thousands of revolutions per
minute. Bones are broken, lacerations are produced and, flesh (or
worse) may be removed. Don’t think that your scalp can withstand the
momentum of the spinning device. Large pieces of scalp can be jerked
off a human head which has its hair so entangled!! I witnessed this
once. I wince at the memory. I think of a beard and wince harder.

So, what to do? Don’t quit using the tools. JUST REMEMBER to tie
back the hair (beard), roll up the loose sleeve, lose the scarf or
tie and think about it. I have been amused in following the Ganoksin
postings that people get worried about relatively small things like
handling a piece of lead (Pb) or using denatured alcohol in flux but
use other hazardous chemicals, tools and processes every day without
thought (automobiles??). Some people even use large open gas flames
to cook food—inside the house! Children are driven to school with
tanks of highly flammable, even explosive fuels strapped under or
inside their vehicles–gasoline/petrol. Risk assessment is a tricky
business. I am almost willing to bet that there are be people
following Ganoksin who could point to dangers associated with
practically every tool or process we use in our studios and
workshops. Why, then, do we still use them? Firstly, we need them
(or feel that we do). Secondly, there are protocols and methods for
their use that allow us to use them safely. There are people around
willing to discuss or teach these methods and protocols as is
witnessed by this forum.

Remember, real people do loose portions of scalp as described above
(really), develop pulmonary fibrosis through inhalation of
particulates and get acid burns. One of my neighbors burned his
house by forgetting a skillet of grease on his gas cook stove. All
these things can and do happen, but, thankfully, not to the great
majority of us. I hope. As one who has been involved in risk
assessment as a professional, I would be quite surprised if there
were not a manual specifically describing and evaluating the risks
to which we are exposed in making jewelry. If such does not exist,
perhaps someone should attempt to gather the and write
one.

If you are worried about a potential risk, keep asking questions.
One caveat, however. Carefully winnow and examine the advice you
receive as to its value. I read postings here and in other forums
that are misleading or flat wrong. The truth will come out if you
keep reading and studying the problem. Education is your best
friend. Ignorance is not.

Gerald Vaughan

Note From Ganoksin Staff:
Looking for a compact drill for your jewelry projects? We recommend:

So I strike a balance by wearing leather fingertip protectors. 

striking a balance would suggest that they are balancing risk versus
comfort. That isn’t accurate. By using fingertip cots, instead of
gloves, you ELIMINATE the risk that gloves pose, since the fingertip
cots pull off easily, without the potential to catch and pull your
finger in. The only tradeoff is that in addition to insulating
against heat, they do also reduce your “feel” for the work, so
sometimes it’s easier to loose your grip on the work. But that’s also
not a major problem. Rather than saying they strike a balance, I’d
say that they simply offer a proper solution if you wish to have some
protection on your fingers. Vet wrap tape is another good solution,
as is using loose pieces of heavy leather to grip things. Strips of
belt weight leather curled into a U shape are a great way to hold a
ring for buffing the inside, without burning your fingers, and don’t
increase any danger to your fingers as a tradeoff.

The mistakes made by the young polisher I described in my post about
an accident, were that with a full glove (any weight, but I think the
light flimsy cotton types were probably the worst type he could
wear), your hand is potentially caught by the glove, and if the glove
is snagged, you don’t easily come free from the glove. Then, anyone
learning to polish is told to polish with the length of a wire, not
across it. Going across a wire or edge is a great way to risk having
it catch and snag on the buff. And in this case, a bangle bracelet,
having that happen with a buff about the size of the bracelet almost
guarantees that the buff will pull through the loop of the bracelet
engangling it. Had the fellow been using a buff substantially larger
in diameter than the bracelet (the right way), or substantially
smaller than the bracelet (still risky, but a lot better), he might
not have been injured. And then finally, NEVER, EVER, hook a finger
through a piece of work. He had his finger through the bracelet, so
when the buff caught the bracelet, there was absolutely no way he
could get free. Only if he’d been using such a small motor that
getting caught would have just stalled the motor, could he have
avoided injury. This may be the most cardinal rule of buffing. Hold
the work in a “pinch” grasp, fingers on each side in such a manner
that a sufficient pull on the work, should it snag, can yank it out
of your grasp without taking any part of your hand with it. There are
literally no exceptions to this rule that I can think of. If you’ve
got something to polish which does not seem to offer such a way to
grip it, then find another way to hold it, such as in some sort of
pliers or a pin vise or polishing fixture.

And though I didn’t dwell on it in my last post, one of the biggest
problems leading to that accident involve the guy sitting behind him,
facing the other way. That man was the long time experienced polisher
in charge of that area. He was the one responsible in the end, for
properly training the young new employee. The young guy made all
those mistakes because nobody had told him the right way to do it.
His boss’s work station wasn’t positioned so he could watch the new
guy work all the time, but he certainly should have spent the time
being sure the new guy knew the right way to do the job. There is a
message there for all who teach or supervise or even just work with
less experienced workers. We need to all be our brothers (and
sister’s) keepers with regard to safety and proper techniques. And
that even includes those who jump into a discussion here on Orchid to
help someone who is not in the same location as we are. None of us
should ever just assume that someone else will automatically know
how to do something right or safely. Part of sharing skills here on
Orchid is also sharing warnings and risks.

But part of the responsibility of people consuming all the info here
on Orchid is also to read those posts, warnings and risks included,
with common sense. Panic and over reacting is not generally
warranted. Just pay attention, learn, do additional research if
needed. and ask questions when something isn’t fully clear.
Remember, there are only two types of dumb questions. The first is
the one that should have been asked, but wasn’t, and the second is
the one that’s been asked and answered millions of times already, but
where the person asking is doing so simply because they’re too lazy
to bother looking to see if it’s already been asked and answered many
times over. And of the two types of dumb questions, the first one is
the worse of the two. Asking a redundant repeat question may make you
LOOK dumb, or lazy, etc. But not bothering to ask a question you
Should have asked, but didn’t, is what actually Can be dumb.

cheers
Peter

What I do use, for rings, is a strip of leather, passed through the
ring, and held so that the mop will pull it out of my hand if it
catches. 

Maybe I’m not understanding you. What’s the leather strip for?

Hello Andrew, Do not polish without a dust collector of some kind I
doubt the polishing compounds will hurt you, but you must get those
cotton fibers out of the air before you breathe them. Over time, they
will ill you dead dead dead.

Tom Arnold

When polishing, I mount my Dremel in a wooden handscrew clamped to
a table. I can then hold my piece and polish just like the big
boys! 

Well, maybe for some things, Andrew, but being limited to the very
small size buffs a dremel can use, is a major limitation in what sort
of end result you can achieve.

However, there is a related additional cheap way. You can get cheap
mounts to let you mount a standard electric drill so it can be used
as a buffer (variable speed, no less, if you’ve got a variable speed
drill, as most of them are these days). While the drill chuck won’t
let you hold every style of buff, you can get mandrels (hardware
store cheap stuff) which will let you mount a 4 or 5 inch buff on the
drill. These things rotate at a slower speed than standard buffing
motors, but that’s not a bad thing for beginners.

Additionally, while the specialized motors sold for polishing use are
often costly, you can actually make do with things like standard
washing machine type motors. I’ve seen used motors of this type for
5 or ten bucks at thrift shops. They’re open to the air rather than
being sealed, and often not ball bearing motors, so they won’t last
forever. But if you can mount it to a table, and put a tapered
spindle on the shaft, you’re in business at 1725 rpm, which will
still be fast enough for a lot of uses. That’s the “slow” speed on
the two speed buffing motors, and is a good speed especially for
beginners, even if it takes longer. If you’re buffing larger items
and want fast action, use a larger diameter buff to get the higher
surface speeds. Want to take it a step up? do a little magic with
plywood and build a scoop behind the buff area, and hook it up to a
shop vac or any other vacuum cleaner with a hose. Now you’ve got some
measure of dust collection as well…

Peter Rowe

I don't like wearing gloves during polishing because I need the
flexibility. But it's not just dirt that gloves protect against:
buffing and polishing produce friction, and friction produces
HEAT. And heat can hurt fingertips. 

Polishing heat can be grouped into general category of other mishaps
like bench with rolling mill moving, or drill breaks, or bezel melts,
and etc. This category can be named “Wrong Techniques At Wrong Time
Performed With Wrong Speed”.

As a training exercise try the following:

Start by taking a strip of silver and finishing it to 600 level.
Then, make some pumice powder and rub strip all over to remove all
traces of emery. You should have dead white surface which will show
absolutely everything. Make a bezel from this strip. Every time you
leave a mark on the surface, stop and restore it to the original
condition. When you finish, polish your bezel using very gentle
contact with polishing wheel. You can go straight into rouge, no need
for tripoli. You should be able to get brilliant finish with bezel
getting barely warm. Apply what you would learn in this exercise to
everything you do, and no more burned fingers.

Leonid Surpin

So I strike a balance by wearing leather fingertip protectors. 

Strips of leather are good, stuff on your hands even cotts not good.
Sure things get hot and you get dirty fingers. Given practice you
get good at washing your hands and/or not buffing your fingers or
nails. Fingers loose their sensitively to the heat. I don’t trust my
fingers anymore to tell if something is hot.

jeffD
Demand Designs
Analog/Digital Modelling & Goldsmithing
http://www.gmavt.net/~jdemand

..... "rainbowchaser" or something. I'll bet that makes you much
less prone to the night horrors sort of thing... (grin) 

I like Rainbowchaser. With 50 years as a prospector behind me that
is a handle which might fit. Always looking for the pot of gold and
the odds are thousands to one against us. Fellow prospector Rock 9
and I share an interest in enhancing jade.

We’ve both seen jade deposits in nature in the same geological
region ( the volcanic fields of BC-Washington). Most of it is “junk
jade” which does not even support the high cost of extraction and
transportation. But one thought I had on which you might like to give
an opinion is that of glazing jade for enhancement. Glazing is a kind
of polishing is it not?

I made an observation of a junk jade deposit that has various highly
aesthetic natural glazes on the surface. It is only a prospector’s
guess at the geological history but here it is: the hydrothermal
waters from a nearby fault coated the stones with assorted minerals.
Periodically there was volcanic activity (sometimes associated with
earthquakes and crust plate movement) and the heat-pressure factors
turned those surface deposits to glaze.

The enhancement is remarkable. Sampling the glazes for assay is
difficult but doable. The colour of these glazes ranges from clear to
powdery blue to sooty black and bluish black. The only other place I
have seen a soft powdery blue mineral like this is Bancroft Ontario
(sodalite). The present blue glaze might be the amphibole mineral
glaucophane (again a prospector’s guess from field observation).

Do you think lab-created simulant glazes could be used in lieu of
cold application polishes for jade enhancement?

Everyone,

It has been about three years since a student of mine almost lost
two fingers polishing with gloves on. Not EVER a part of one of my
demonstrations. Her fingers were bent back and dislocated. She
healed without a trace of the experience. She thought it would be a
good way to keep her hands clean. Don’t wear gloves!

Here is another approach and what I demonstrate and recommend.

Use clerical rubber finger tips. I have for many years like the
protection and grip I get with them. You can get them at an office
supply store in various sizes. My thumbs are a size 14 and they get
small in half sizes. Usually the cost is by the box of six or twelve.
Go and try some on for fit and buy a couple of boxes. They are not
expensive. In my forty years of jewelry making I’ve always used them
and would not change. Once or twice I have had one pulled off my
fingertip by a small polishing brush without any harm to my fingers.
They are just on the ends so they come on and off easily.

Polishing technique from me says that if you are polishing so the
piece gets too hot to handle you are being too aggressive with
whatever compound and wheel you are using. Slow down a bit. Silver
will get quite hot when polishing. With too much heat you loose
control of what you are doing. A dish of water will work, but way too
messy for me. An old polisher I worked with named Odegaard, with
honest to God sixty-five years in the jewelry trade (with most of it
polishing) used turpentine. He said it made the compound work better.
I don’t recommend that at all, but I haven’t been polishing for that
much time yet either.

I also do not like getting crap under my fingernails (not much of a
car mechanic here). The rubber fingertips keep you fingertips a bit
cleaner too. I will even use them when filing or sawing close to my
fingers for safety. How many of us have cut their fingers with that
darn jewelers saw??? You do get a good grip with them on if you have
the right size. A brand new file can take the end of a finger down in
a blink of an eye! Ouch!!

My advice on a cheap dust collector would be to get a wet/dry vac
that has a drywall paper filter option. The filter goes down to 5 or
6 microns or something like that. It’s noisy, but cheap. The bag is
easily recycled. The hose can fit right into a polishing hood with s
bit of a hose size modification. The polishing dust collectors that
have the furnace filter behind the motor fill up right away if you
polish at all. Not much good after only a dozen or so items polished.

Best Regards & be safe!

Todd Hawkinson
Southeast Technical College

Armstrong Tool and Supply

has the perfect polishing glove, nitril over nylon. NEVER had
problems!!

Steve

Tom,

Do not polish without a dust collector of some kind I doubt the
polishing compounds will hurt you, but you must get those cotton
fibers out of the air before you breathe them. Over time, they will
ill you dead dead dead. 

Yeah, even with the clamp mounted dremel doing my cross earrings two
Christmases ago, I didn’t like how cloth buffs threw crud in my face
all that much, so in the end I had resorted to using my Silicon
Softies.

Peter,

It so happens that I got a substantial sized shop vac for
Christmas… I was indeed wondering what I was going to do with it.

Believe it or not, over the summer there was an machinist’s estate
sale, and I got a nice large motor already mounted on a piece of
wood.

I also have a nice polishing table that I made out of a door which I
braced against the inside wall of my shed last summer, it has a nice
hole in table where the doorknob was.

Could you kindly draw and then scan a jpeg of the plywood contraption
you have in mind for me to make, then email it to me either offline
or message me with a photo on Facebook?

Thanks so much,
Andrew Jonathan Fine

You are not quite correct!! Though cotton fibers inhaled can cause
fibrosis (lung scarring, granulomas, COPD), the particulate material
from grindstones and polishing compound cause such damage far more
readily. Fibrosis inthe lung means that the lung tissues cannot
stretch and fill with air. This is not just a supposition. This is a
proven fact. I have personally examined such lungs and have
performed hundreds of necropsies revealing scarred lungs full of
granulomas (benign tumors). It has been stated numerous (!) times
that polishers should wear good masks or have good vacuum/air
handling systems while they work. I have watched numerous times as
people have raised volumes of dust while behind the safety of a mask
only to jerk off the mask immediately when examining the polished
piece. Did the dust disappear from the air when they switched off
the motor? I don’t know, I’ve never checked. Have any of you
readers?

Should you stop using grinding wheels and polishing compounds to
avoid this real danger? Silly question! Of course not. Wear a mask
when you are exposed to dust in the air and/or have a good air
handling system to control the dust. I showed someone with little
money how to improvise a hood to collect dust produces while
polishing metal (I used it myself). A cardboard carton served as the
hood (with a piece of plexiglass taped over the top half of the open
front). The dust was removed via a vacuum cleaner hose. A second hose
lead from the exhaust of the vacuum cleaner through a window to the
exterior. Worked quite well. In my own shop I sometimes use a
Searsshop vac with a HEPA filter.

In a fashion, I feel guilty ruining peoples fun by pointing to
safety issues. I don’t mean to be a spoilsport but when I see the
opportunity to protect someones health or life I feel compelled to
respond. Remember, that there are ways around all these problems and
that they are not always expensive. Just necessary.

Gerald Vaughan

Not sure if this is the exact thread of the polishing question, but
I began with a $29 Black & Decker double chef at with a light bulb
fixture in the middle from Wal-Mart.

I think for some reason I cut down the shafts and a bit. But I was
able to find perfect fit spindles okay so there is no fan to suck the
dust on the air.

An inexpensive standup fans also from Wal-Mart will help keep the
dust from going directly at you but then again wear a mask, goggles a
hat and even possibly work behind an inexpensive piece of Plexiglas
and the fan I don’t think is even necessary I think and may have
gotten a Plexiglas picture frame again from Wal-Mart and warmed up to
bend to the right angle.

There was something subtly enjoyable about the minimalist of my tool
supply then. Of course now I have your typical monster table polisher
now, a special pliers have special screw to make sure I don’t damage
the special blades. Special burnishes from special steel. And special
this and special that. Which brings me to the thought that I should
post separately but let’s throw it out there.

There’s been talk about a site to sell used to equipment, jeweler to
jeweler. We’ve all outgrown at least 10 %or more percent of our
equipment. So, what if the orchid people agree to have a section of
jeweler to jeweler sales with a nice stiff commission of something
like at least 25%… after all, you and I know these outgrown tools
will just sit around in “that box over there” for ever. Orchid needs
the donation income, we don’t need the tools, and we could easily
afford 25% donation to our favorite(and only) site with a name that
nobody can really pronounce( but that’s okay, as it adds to the
mystique.)

So what do you all think?
zev

PS we could call it the Ganoksingelt B to B Exchange (gelt is
Yiddish for money)

....the perfect polishing glove, nitril over nylon. NEVER had
problems!! 

We have be round this issue before, all it takes is one oops and you
are severely damaged, possibly maimed for life. If that is what you
wish to do then fine but, it is totally irresponsible to recommend
the practice of wearing any kind of glove while polishing. It is just
too dangerous.

James Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts

.... You can get cheap mounts to let you mount a standard electric
drill so it can be used as a buffer (variable speed, no less, if
you've got a variable speed drill, as most of them are these days).
While the drill chuck won't let you hold every style of buff, you
can get mandrels (hardware store cheap stuff) which will let you
mount a 4 or 5 inch buff on the drill. These things rotate at a
slower speed than standard buffing motors, but that's not a bad
thing for beginners. 

I use my inverted drill like this all the time and find it
enormously useful. My question is, does anyone know where such drill
mounts can be purchased? Sometimes my students ask.

Judy Bjorkman

Okay, now that I’ve been suitably warned (I appreciate it, by the
way) after reading this thread, I still have a couple more
questions:

1 - the grit from certain wheels as well as the fluffy stuff from
others is not good for one’s health. Is a dust mask sufficient to
protect? Or, if it were your lungs, would you be buying a dust
collection system without a doubt?

2 - anyone tried the various creams used by gardeners for there
hands? I bought something for my mum, from Lee Valley, sorta like
instant gloves, in a liquid. Supposed to keep dirty out of those
tiny little crevices in one’s fingers. Or, I was thinking of trying
liquid skin for the very beat up parts of my fingers. Won’t help with
heat, obviously, or chewed up finger nails.

Thanks

Hi Jim,

It is totally irresponsible to recommend the practice of wearing
any kind of glove while polishing. It is just too dangerous. 

You are absolutely right. I’ve known some hideous accidents
personally, and heard of worse.

best
Charles

Andrew,

Protect your lungs!

I underscore both Peter and Todd’s comments about the means to
catch/filter the debris from polishing. Even a small Dremel will
throw off black “stuff” which is not good to breathe. Early on, I
used a grinder motor with a tapered spindle to buff silver. It
worked, but gradually black, sooty deposits accumulated on nearby
surfaces. The day I began coughing up black phlegm was the day I
purchased a polishing motor with replaceable filters and powered
exhaust. The higher speed, double spindles, and lighting were bonus!

While we’re talking safe polishing, another finger protection is to
wrap “VetWrap” or “Alligator Tape” around finger ends. If caught by
the buff, the stuff is easily pulled off - it doesn’t stick to your
skin. This is what they wrap around your arm to hold the gauze square
in place when the lab tech takes a blood sample. Save it and reuse it
when you polish.

Judy in Kansas, where temps have been in the 'teens and the snow just
isn’t melting. Can’t wait for Tucson temps!!

the grit from certain wheels as well as the fluffy stuff from
others is not good for one's health. Is a dust mask sufficient to
protect? Or, if it were your lungs, would you be buying a dust
collection system without a doubt? 

A good dust mask rated N-95 (filters 95%) or better is generally
considered quite sufficient for safety. But that doesn’t help with
the dust that gets all over the shop too. The advantage of the dust
collection systems are that they help keep the shop clean as well as
protecting your lungs (though for smaller systems and dustier work,
some people still use a mask along with the dust collection systems.
One important note that that if the dust goes all over your shop,
it’s gone. If it goes into the filters of a collection system, then
you can send it off to a refiner when you’ve got enough. Even if you
only work with silver, at 30 bucks an ounce, that can substantially
reduce the actual cost of the machine, and if you work with gold or
platinum, you’ll quickly pay for the machine.

anyone tried the various creams used by gardeners for there hands?
I bought something for my mum, from Lee Valley, sorta like instant
gloves, in a liquid. Supposed to keep dirty out of those tiny
little crevices in one's fingers. Or, I was thinking of trying
liquid skin for the very beat up parts of my fingers. Won't help
with heat, obviously, or chewed up finger nails. 

The creams help a lot. But not perfect. A good day’s polishing kind
of overwhelms the cream’s ability to block the dirt. But they do
help. So does using the type of cleaner used by mechanics rather than
just plain soap (which dries my hands out, and I assume would do it
to you too.) This stuff (I get it at Sam’s club) is a big orange
plastic jug with a pump top. The contents are a white creamy cleaner
that smells strongly of orange oil. Cuts through greasy dirt on the
hands very easily, especially with a bit of help from a brush, and
leaves your skin in a comfortable state. But you’ll have to use both
the creams and those good cleaners, and be a lot more aggressive with
the brush, if you hope to finish up a day of polishing with pristene
“straight from the manicure” looking fingers and nails…