[Jewelry making - Article 00107] - Re: [Orchid] Cleaning rusted hammers and stakes

[Adams, Mitch]

========[ Invite a Friend - http://www.ganoksin.com/invite.htm  ]========

Robb

    If you are going to use power tools for significant amounts of work
    on your hammers and stakes, do it under the protection of good
    filtration. If you don't, your studio, your nose, and your lungs
    will be coated with a fine red/brown dust. I often make stakes for a
    specific project and have messed up my studio several times before I
    realized the problem. If you don't need to remove much material,
    skip the heavy sanding/grinding equipment and start with hand filing
    (if you just need to remove 1/16 of an inch or so). 

    For my rough shaping, I use a 4" belt sander to take off lots of
    material fast. It also throws up lots of dust, so I built a
    collection hood at the end of it that I connect to a 6 hp shop vac.
    It seems to work pretty good. Once I have 80% of the material
    removed that needs it, I switch to a files to do the final shaping.
    I use two. First is a coarse, double cut, bastard file and then I
    switch to a mill file (single cut). Don't use your jewelry files,
    they are small and will take a lot of time. Go to your local, big
    box, hardware store and buy both of those files from them in 10" or
    12" versions. 

    To sand and polish, I use a good hood with built in filtration. The
    filters last for about 1 stake before they have to be changed. (buy
    pleated filters at the hardware store and cut them to size - they
    work much better than they spun filters that come with the polishing
    hoods.) I sand with buffing wheels like jewelers use for bobbing
    compound or tripolis, but I use the Rio, "Quick Finish" series of
    sanding compounds. (I tried Lea, but Quick Finish is easier to apply
    and works slightly better) Most people overlook Quick Finish in the
    vast Rio catalog, but they are the first item listed on the page
    with polishing compounds. They come in 80, 220, and 400 grits. I use
    a separate wheel for each. They work very fast. They come in a tube,
    (which should be closed when not being used because they dry out),
    and they should be applied to the wheel as it spins down after the
    switch is turned off. (otherwise, they will not stick and the
    sanding compound will be thrown off) Use each grit until you can not
    see the scratches from the previous grit. Once you have sanded thru
    the 400 grit, you can either stop there or polish the steel,
    depending on what the hammer/stake will be used for. I use
    "Stainless Steel Compound", made by Matchless and available from
    Allcraft. It comes in a white bar and is used just like Tripoli. It
    cuts the 400 grit marks off fast and leaves a high polish (cuts fast
    and leaves a high polish seems like a contradiction but it does). 

    To do maintenance on your hammers and stakes, just jump into the
    above sequence and work till the end of it, depending how badly you
    dinged the tool up. 

Mitch Adams
____________________________________________________________________
T h e   O r c h i d   L i s t
Open Electronic Forum for Jewelry Manufacturing Methods and Procedures
____________________________________________________________________
Orchid FAQ:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/faq.htm
Orchid Archives:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/archive
Orchid Galleries:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/gallery.htm
Invite a Friend:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/invite.htm
____________________________________________________________________
Tips From The Jeweler's Bench - Article Archive
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/tip_sear.htm
The Jeweler's Selected Bibliography List
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/jewelry-books
Buy Orchid Jewelry:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/shop
____________________________________________________________________
-Unsubscribe:
-Email: orchid-request AT ganoksin.com Body=unsubscribe subject=blank
____________________________________________________________________