Beginners Guide to Jewellery Making Finishing.


Finishing is one of the most transformative and rewarding parts of the whole jewellery making process and always brings with it a certain sense of anticipation. Finishing can take many forms and can entail mirror polishing to a high shine, texturing or colouring using chemicals. However the foundation of all fi nishing is polishing so this is what we will focus on in this section.


When you polish a hard surface you basically buff it until all the scratches are removed. Fine jewellery polishing is usually done with soft round polishing wheels called mops which are covered in polish and rotated at high speed to bring up a mirror fi nish.


18 Tools of the trade...


A) Wet and dry paper and emery paper: These are both abrasive papers which can be used with water to achieve a fi ner fi nish or without. They are used to prepare the surface of the metal before polishing and are graded from rough to smooth. The more grades you use, the fi ner the fi nish will be but as a guide try to use, (at the very least), a coarse, medium and smooth grade paper before attempting to polish.


B) Emery Sticks (buff sticks): Emery sticks are shaped wooden sticks covered in a layer of abrasive paper which can be used to apply more pressure than using emery paper alone. They come in a range of grades and profi les very similar to fi les. An assorted selection pack will make a very good basis for your toolkit.


C) Polishing Mops: Polishing mops come in varying densities and are normally made from felt, calico, wool, leather and swansdown amongst other things. You generally use a harder (denser) mop fi rst made of felt or calico, followed by a softer mop for the fi nal buffi ng which could be leather, wool or swansdown. Mops come in a range of sizes from 1-6” diameter.


Polishing Motor: All polishing mops need to be used in conjunction with some form of high speed motor and this can either be a hand held rotary drill, a pendant motor or a bench mounted motor with a tapered spindle fi tting. A bench mounted motor will facilitate full size mops where as a rotary drill and pendant motor will use miniature mops or burrs.


E) Polishing Compounds: Polishing compound is applied to your mop before you start to polish. You can either use a compound tailored to your specifi c metal of choice, or you can go for a general all –purpose version suitable for a range of metals. All purpose compounds are ideal for beginners and a two stage polishing process will give you great results.


F) Tripoli (Polishing Compound): Tripoli is used for your fi rst stage of polishing. It is suitable for most metals and will remove scratches and marks left from emery paper. It comes in the form of a bar and is simply held against your polishing mop whilst in motion to apply.


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Tip: Polishing creates a huge amount of dust and debris so it is vital that you have adequate ventilation for this task.


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Tip: Steel shot rusts extremely easily, so it is best stored completely submerged in water with a spoonful of your soap solution (Barrelbrite) to keep it in good condition.


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