Probably a dull question, my next major purchase is polishing equipment. At the moment I use a hobby pendant motor and flexible drive and use cutting compound and rouge on felt wheels to try to get a shine. This is all preceded by files and reducing coarseness of wet and dry paper. I get an OK shine but it can be a bit uneven if I apply pressure unevenly. My biggest complaint is that rouge dust gets everywhere. I tend to go for a satin finish using a brass brush to avoid the rouge.

I assumed that I would move up to a polishing motor such as Polishing Motor -1/2hp Includes Spindles - 2800 Rpm - Cooksongold.com but this still means using rouge which means I need extract of some sort and therefore extra cost.

I thought that barrels were only used to polish stones, yet there is a lot on the forum about them polishing silver. A few questions:-

• Can barrels be used to achieve a high shine on silver or have I completely lost the plot?

• Are the two methods interchangeable or are both really needed?

• Is the same amount of preparation with reducing coarseness of wet and dry needed? I’m not trying to avoid work as I find this quite therapeutic and love it when I get down to very fine stuff, just wondering about the process.

• Does barrelling remove fire stain?

• Is there any loss of detail on intricate work.


You all seem to rave about barrels so any tips or advice would be gratefully received. Sorry I started off with one question and it grew, I’d better post before I think of any more!