Iam interested in purchasing a tumbler for small scale jewelry
production. Am I better off purchasing a tumbler or a vibratory
finisher? Also, what is the best finishing media for burnishing
and cleaning up small silver pieces and burnishing completed kum-boo?
I have a small inexpensive rotary tumbler and use steel shot
which consists of different shapes. It works fine for my Kum
Boo. I only leave the pieces in for about 15 minutes, and use
a very mild burnishing compound----to wit,—Ivory soap which I
have grated on my regular cheese grater. For a small tumbler,
I use about 1 level tablespoon of the Ivory soap. I know there
are many more sophisticated burnishing compounds available, but
the advantage of the ivory soap is that it contains no grit
which would tend to abrade the kum boo. I have been using this
for years and have never had a problem. Tried, one of the
commercial compounds, and it pitted the silver, so now I use
Ivory for all my tumbling–even pieces without the kum boo.
Dennis Floyd - why don’t you get the little book from Rio Grande
on tumble finishing for handmade jewelry? It should answer your
questions in lots more detail than we can do on the Orchid list.
Judy