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Tumbling & Polishing Your Pieces

Lesson 7 from: Beginning Wirework for Jewelry Making

Raissa Bump

Tumbling & Polishing Your Pieces

Lesson 7 from: Beginning Wirework for Jewelry Making

Raissa Bump

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Lesson Info

7. Tumbling & Polishing Your Pieces

Lesson Info

Tumbling & Polishing Your Pieces

So one last thing that I'm going to show that should just be a finishing thing for after the liver of sulfur or even if you're not and you just want to shine your pieces up I've got a tumbler here's a really basic tumbler with some steel shot in it of different shapes and I'm gonna open this up and I'm gonna tumble these pieces and now they'll burnish up will shine up and it's fuss free overall, you know, sitting here with a polishing wheel or anything and so this one's got steel shot it's got different shapes of steel shot so that, um it could get into different areas of the work that you're working with this would be a great time you two have some water and a little bit of dis opus so you place your items in there nothing too fragile but you know, most most items here can go in there you're rings, your hearings, your bangles and, you know, take some water just fill it up so that it's about half uninterested over the steel shot not too much and I like to put a tiny bit of dis soap in ...

there just a drop and then cover it up and put this around so hold it together I want to just make sure that it's not gonna leak right who see get this top on there so set right and not gonna leak rolled around and then you place it on like this, plug it in and let it tumble and you'll have results in five minutes or you can leave it in there for half hour for an hour in this project that's totally fine. Just let it sit there and tumble. And then when you take it out, rinse it off and it's got it's got a nice shine to it and sparkly water when you take it out yeah, it's only what I like some people put ammonia in here. Tio, I just use a little bit of dish soap. Any dish soap and the water and just rinse it off. Yeah. It's, no big deal. And and you're good. You're good to go. Yeah. Let's see any other questions? I know that some of that we went through pretty fast. It's a lot of the same techniques for different different results that you can get us faras the pieces that you make. Yes, he has a couple of questions, questions that came in from zoe zen garden. So we welcome to thanks for the questions. One of things she was asking about the ear wise does our gente, um, still the work for those I've never worked with argentine silver but it does work for that one of the main parks of that of argentine silver that people like is it tarnishes less so the different alloy in there and it should work yeah she's a match your home canada so she's got a lot of citric acid at home but is that is the citric active pyszka what you use something you need to buy from a jewellery supply or can you make your eyes from the jeweler select supply and yeah otto fry has a great citric acid and I don't know that to the chemical you know, degree of the differences between those two but certainly um I think it just you could try it out you could certainly try it out with some warm water and it probably will have results for cleaning the metal the canning stuff but I actually don't know I've never tried it exactly when creating the solutions where the pickle for the sulfur and say you're not doing such a big project how long can can you reuse the solution? Turn this off for the moment as it becomes loud so the pickle solution you use a lot to do I mean it depends on how much work you're using it's not one of those things where it's days necessarily it's how much material you put in there that it's actually cleaning because the solution get it can get exhausted and fall of the ions and whatever the clean, whatever took off the metal. Eso if you're doing a lot of satire ing and putting things in there, it will. It could be millican last month, it can last a while, and you always turn it off when you're not using it. Turn on low when you are using it, keeping it lifted, and so it can last a while that it'll change color and you'll notice that it's not doing such a good job and so, um, that's when you will change it. Yeah, it's, not something you do daily. So if we were just doing a small project and probably not going to do this again for a while, say it's a home hobby and we work full time or something, um, is it okay to just do it in a small glass dish like you have up there for your baking soda and water with some heated water and stuff? And then when you're done, are you able to put it down the drain? My suggestion is to get a get a little crock pot. Just keep your pickle in. You want to neutralize it so this is baking soda and water so anything I take out of the pickle I put in the baking soda and water solution, which neutralizes the acid so you want to do the same thing at home? You're basically wear gloves when you're doing that you're putting baking soda. It's not a you're not measuring it just it's. An imprecise thing depends on how how it is. So you want to let it cool for sure, don't do this when it's warm the cool it is, the better you're adding baking soda to it will foam and bubble a bit. And then it means that when it's not bubbling anymore, it's neutralized and is good to go down. Okay. And yeah. So, you know, commercial designs to the ear wires also go into the tumbler, can lay and and does the tumbler also hard in the metal. Yes, yes, to all of that. So that the ear wires can certainly go in there. You can always if, like, these might get a little bit miss shape these long, simple sticks in there, but you can you can straighten them out with your fingers and not gonna get really kicked up, just straighten him out with your fingers a little bit or tap here. To get them straight, if you need to afterwards your wires, absolutely khun, go in there and yes, so any time that's, like it's steel is harder than the silver or the copper, so it's hitting, hitting, hitting against the material and they're so some people use it to work hard and things they might have to leave it a long time. I know people leave things in the tumbler overnight. Even so, within five, ten minutes, you're not going to work hard in your piece too much in this sense, but it will work hard in your pieces. Over time. I had a question about nairobi and why I don't. If I said that romney could be near being my term to use, have you ever used that as an immature? Never have used that so I don't have a lot of suggestions for that. It's. I think sodders differently males differently, all of the above, so maybe not the project to follow these instructions with that material.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Raissa Bump - Beginning Wirework Supply List.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Beth Soll
 

Raissa's work and explanations here are wonderful. 5 Star quality! I am a beginning jewelry student but I have many of the items on her list because I decided to go further with this. She also tells you how to use other tools if you don't have them (i.e. Dremel or even hand-held to twist instead of a flex shaft for twisting the wire)! The dude that wrote that beginners don't have the tools must be joking. There are things you can do ahead of time to prepare yourself if you want to get serious. For example, I previewed this class so I would be ready and got a few things. I will eventually own everything on her list. I'm so glad you included her as a teacher. More please!!

Luminary Organics
 

This is a fantastic class for a beginning jewelry maker. Raissa is a wonderful teacher. She explains what she is doing as she does it and takes her time to make sure the student understands why she is doing each step. I have watched this class twice so far. The first time I made three different twisted wire pieces for bracelets. The second time through, I made two bracelets and three rings! Thank you CreativeLive for bringing Raissa Bump to your platform!

Nadja Meyer
 

Good starting point if you have never done any Jewelry at all before

Student Work

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