Yesterday I spent a pleasant afternoon polishing. Yes, really. Don't look so surprised. I didn't cover the surrounding area with polish, I don't have the usual polish lines around the edges of my dust mask and all the debris is safely collected (which includes some lemel in amongst it).

I was using my newly-purchased Durston polishing motor; I've been mulling switching to a motor with extraction for a while now, and this seemed to fit the bill.

It'll take up to 6" buffs, which means my larger polish flinger is going to be decommissioned as well; it has forced air extraction that doesn't suck (well, it does, but never mind); it has a light built-in so you can see how things are progressing; it's got a lipped top so you can put stuff on top (polishes, items about to be polished, that kind of thing) and it's heavy enough not to wander around during use. I've not yet sorted out replacement filters for it, although I suspect that cooker hood filters will probably fit the bill. The steel construction means it weighs in at 24kg, but it does feel very solid. The interior is easy to clean out - I used a 2" paintbrush (I'll probably glue a magnet to it so it can live on the side of the machine), sweeping the stray debris into the extraction vents. I'd probably like it if the spindle were fractionally longer so I had more room to the left, but that's not all that critical.

All in all, a really nice piece of kit. Costly, but less so than equivalent products @ £599 + VAT (and yes, I *would* have liked the current 15% off more than the 10% from earlier in the week!). http://www.cooksongold.com/Jewellery...prcode-998-AX9

(And if anyone was wondering, sorry - my old polishing motor has already been sold!)