Polishing techniques - help needed for a newbie!

Hi
Please go easy on me, i'm new to forums, and new to silversmithing!
I've got to the point in my work where i am confident enough to solder, saw etc.. basic items. I now want to be able to polish them well. I have a dremel with soft mop and rouge, and have also just bought the radial brush kit for it. Are these the right tools to be polishing up things into a good shine? I have made a pendant that consists of two small pieces of 5x3cm silver sheet with a square piece of wire inbetween and have soldered a snaptite setting on to hold a stone. I have filed it down to how i want it to look, but my sheet has a few scratches in, whats the best technique and equipment to remove these before polishing?
Unfortunately my short silver smithing course really did only cover the basics and now I'm stuck attempting to pick up things through trial and error and through information i can find on the internet!
Many thanks in advance.
lucy

Hi Lucy,

In short it is much easier to clean up scratches in sheet with abrasive papers before soldering things on, because you have a clear run. Now that you have obstacles in the way, the best you can do is use emery boards meant for nails, which you can cut to shape with a craft blade.

You can also glue various abrasive papers and even MicroMesh (Google it) onto lollipop sticks and wooden coffee stirrers with superglue and then shape them in the same way.

Once the surface is blemish free you can continue with a set of radial disks. If after that you intend to do anything more, such as stone setting, cover everything except the setting in painters' masking tape. At the same time you can tape your piece onto some wood, which will keep it in place while working. Dennis.

Thank you for the info Dennis, I think I know where I was going wrong now, my tutor had told me to use a 180 grit paper , obvious now, but i should be using finer! Have just ordered my self some micromesh and will give that a whirl!

You will love the micromesh!

Sonia
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Originally Posted by sonia

You will love the micromesh!

Sonia
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You certainly will!!!

Completely agree about the micromesh (although I keep mine in a sealed bag as it does have quite a chemically smell...not sure if it's meant to!)

I've never used micromesh, I feel left out. I'm going to have to get my hands on some :D

I use a combination of radial discs and eveflex rubber cylinder polishing thingies, depending on the shape of the piece. Prepping the metal before polishing is super important as if you don't, you'll just polish over all those scratches and marks and they'll still be there, just really shiny. You can get to a near mirror shine just with yellow, blue and green radial discs alone but I always finish off with some rouge on a soft wool or chamois pendant wheel to give it that final finish. Everything turns out beautifully shiny. For pieces that have large flat surfaces, I use the eveflex cylinders and work through the grades, finishing with the green and then finishing off with rouge. Again, perfect results but be aware that the coarse rubber cylinders can actually grind away quite a bit of metal. This can be a good thing if you need to remove slight scratches but I tend to use the coarse ones sparingly. I did a post a while back just recommending the eveflex cylinders as I thought they were wonderful especially used in conjunction with radial discs for getting into the bits the cylinders can't. Here it is:

http://www.cooksongold.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4726

Thank you all for the info, its much appreciated. One day i'll get the hang of this silversmithing malarky!