tumble polish soap

[pearlescence]

Does anyone have a cunning way to get stuff out of the tumble polish shot apart from decanting it all and poking around- It's not the finding of stuff which I am having diff with, but I've been in and out of the tumbler today and my hands are so dried off from the soap it feels like the skin will crack. Short of wearing surgical latex gloves (!) any suggestions?

[Wallace]

have you tried a tea strainer? I normally decant into a very fine mesh sieve I have left over from my pottery days. Just a thought.

[pearlescence]

Yes, I have a fine sieve, but you still get the soapy water over your skin..or I do, anyway. Am I just extra messy?

[Dennis]

I generally find that once I have poured off the liquid into another container, using a large plastic sieve to catch any escapees, rooting among the shot is not too tedious.

However I react badly to detergents, especially in the winter, so I always put on gloves. Packs of those thin surgical latex and vinyl gloves are available in supermarkets. Dennis.

[kymbi]

I tend to strain my barrel through a large but fine strainer (as fine as a tea strainer) over a big bowl, then I take the sieve and rinse the shot and contents under the cold water tap - that way my hands don't come into too much contact with the soap. When I've recovered all the pieces, I just pour the shot back into the tumbler and cover with the strained soap again if it's not too dirty, otherwise just cover with clean water.

[pearlescence]

yup doing all that, or variations on that. I think the gloves will have it. I just wondered if there was some way which didn't involve sieves and some poking around

[Petal]

I tend to strain my barrel through a large but fine strainer (as fine as a tea strainer) over a big bowl, then I take the sieve and rinse the shot and contents under the cold water tap - that way my hands don't come into too much contact with the soap. When I've recovered all the pieces, I just pour the shot back into the tumbler and cover with the strained soap again if it's not too dirty, otherwise just cover with clean water.

I do the same as Kym. If I'm having a problem locating something I get the magnet out too....

Don't do what I did once and overfill the tumbler with stuff to tumble. I left it on for a few hours and popped back to see it and the screw top had undone itself and was wibbling about.... water all very close to lots of plugs that were on !!!!!

[Patstone]

I do the same, only I use a colander with a "J" cloth in, so I can capture the shot. If I am tumbling small items, like stud earrings I got a plastic cable tie and drilled 1mm holes in it and push small studs through that with the backs on, so you can have a piece of cable tie around 3 inches and it makes life very easy fishing it out.

[kymbi]

Oooh, top tip about the studs, I'm going to give that a try

[sonia]

I use a fine sieve and run under the cold tap too. If you gently shake the sieve from side to side you may find the pieces work their way to the top of the shot (or at least to where you can spot them)

Sonia