Polishing Small Curvy Pieces

[SpankySmith]

Reminds me, the one bad thing I will say about the Scotchbrite is it kicks off tiny black pieces of itself all over the place.  My shop floor has a black fuzz layer after a serious grinding/polishing session.   I always wear a mask when I use it, don't want that stuff up in the lungs!

[John McPherson]

Dremel is OK for light duty and very occasional hobby use. Real businesses use real tools. Commercial welders, sculptors, artists and jewelers do not shop at local big box stores. You need a professional grade Foredom tool and accessories from someplace like Rio Grande jewelers supply if you are going to do this a lot. You only need the 'Tools & Equipment' paper catalog, not the whole set.  

 

 

  riogrande.com

[SpankySmith]

Thanks John!  Figured there had to be a heavier grade/professional option!

[anvil]

Even with vinegar, you should consider neutralizing along with your soap bath to prevent rust.

What LSmith said. Emory goes a long way, especially if you like the feel of the iron under your fingers. There's also some subtle highlights you can get as well as, again, subtle shaping you can add to your piece with Emory.

[SpankySmith]

I enjoy hand sanding but I'm talking about places too small to even really get a piece of emery in and work it effectively. Trust me, I tried. I can't even get my pinky finger in some of the places. A toothpick sized Dremel bit works in those tiny places, but again, there are serious limitations to those. I'm going to look at some of the Riogrande tools john mentioned.

[anvil]

Here's an example.

A few years ago I made some Damascus w/ nickel. Had a problem with delamination and I didn't want to scrap it. I made aspen leaf key rings out of it. As the leaf transitioned into twisted & forged stem, the delamination looked like very organic fibers. You can imagine the smallness of the crevices and other Lil nooks and crannies. I uses an inch or so by half emery folded into thirds. What the flats on the emery couldn't get to, the knife edge could. End results looked cool and when held with leaf end down, I called this series "Phoenix Rising" . one of my better saves.

Of course, time being what it is, a little money on higher tech tools may,, save you time. I sincerely doubt, however, anything else will be able to pull out those special, unplanned details.

So kinda like Frosty said, it depends on what you want.

I'm sure, however you choose to do it,
will be striking. ;)

[Fatfudd]

I'm surprised no one mentioned using a wire brush wheel on a drill. You can get some that are very soft and can get down into folds and cracks pretty well. You can also get soft polishing pads that will fit on a mandrel for drills with jewelers rouge. I use those for final polish on small pieces and then tumble them to get the build up out of the cracks. I use a small soft jawed vise to hold the pieces. Seems to work pretty fast and I haven't found any real danger to doing polishing this way. Occasionally  I also use a Foredom tool with a small wire brush wheels or pads for polishing too.

[anvil]

Spanky, just a note. My post wasn't meant as "The Way", but to add info that new folks might not know. Its pretty cool what you can get out of a simple piece of sandpaper.

[SpankySmith]

no explanation necessary, Anvil, I took it as additional advice.   I've just not had much luck with sandpaper/emery in small places.  I will try again though!   Generally now I'm trying to be cognizant of the small places' difficulties when I forge something and not forge myself into a problem!

[Alan Evans]

I think I would go for a tumbler system given the pieces you are trying to do. The burnishing from a wire brush or polishing with a buff and compound will make it a bit brighter however. You can get wire brushes quite soft as others have said. I have some in stainless steel, cup brushes mounted on a 6mm / 1/4" shank which will fit into a pillar or hand drill chuck. They won't snatch too violently! :).

One of the tricks I used for polishing silver necklaces and neck chains was to wrap them around a bit of wood and then the polishing wheel would not snag them. You may find that pinning or holding your bits onto a backing board might help when power buffing or wire brushing.

The most important thing to learn about finishing though is the clever mnemonic that my old metalwork teacher at school told me and I have followed it all my life..."the best way to get marks out of metal is not to put them in!"

For my silver work all my tools; hammers, pliers, bottom blocks etc. i.e. anything that comes in contact with the workpiece is mirror polished. Therefore any mark they make on the job is also mirror polished...simple really. The work retains all the vibrancy and freshness without the loss of definition that surface repair by abrasive polishing imparts.

On iron work the same applies, if your hammer and anvil are pitted so will the surface of your workpiece become, it just transfers across with every blow.

You presumably already give the hot metal a good wire brush before hammering so you don't hammer the oxide into the surface and know about refining the surface by hammering after the metal becomes black in order to reduce the thickness of scale...if you didn't you do now! :)

Be nice to see some of you pieces sometime...

Alan