Polishing Metal Jewelry
September 30, 2006 by Tammy Powley
Filed under Wire
One issue with making metal jewelry, especially if you fabricate or solder, is the fact that you need to clean and polish it after you make it. I recently received an email from a novice metal worker who was concerned about how to clean her metal jewelry. Polishing wheels are not cheap, running any where from about $300 to $500.
So what do you do if you don’t want to spend the big buck?
One alternative is to go with a flexable shaft, aka flex-shaft, aka Dremel, and then use polishing attachements.
For example, here’s a kit from Rio Grande.
I have a more detailed review posted here, but basically, the idea is that you can buy attachements for your hand held motor-thingy and polish this way versus the larger polishing machines. On the down side, the machines normally have a venting system, and you can use both hands versus using one to hold the piece and the other to hold the polisher, but if you just make the occasional piece of metal jewelry, then this alternative might be worth considering.
