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Polishing to a mirror shine - problem!
Hi all,
I keep getting a recurring problem when trying to polish silver ring shanks to a mirror shine. I am polishing by hand from 400, 600, 800, 1200 and then final polish with luxi blue and white using my Foredom.
However, I keep getting a stripe down the middle of my ring shank where it looks like the sand paper/emery stick has not touched.
I have tried polishing with the curve of the ring with a stick, and free holding sandpaper. I have tried going across the ring, I have tried doing a slant diagonally across!
Every time I do it it looks like I have caught all of the silver with the sandpaper at each grade but when I go to polish if up - still have the stripe down the middle.
The rest also looks unfinished too - so maybe I need to use further grades of sandpaper for a mirror shine?? But I am at a loss with my stripe!!
My current ring has had 3 polishes and still does not look anywhere near mirror. I am a little scared to keep at it though as feel nervous about how much sanding you can do!
Any ideas of what I am doing wrong???
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If it is a darkish blue-grey stripe it is firescale. This is copper oxide and occurs fairly deep below the surface. The cause is too much concentrated heating with an oxidising flame (one with a sharp blue cone)
The curse of firescale if you care about it, is that it becomes more visible the shinier you make the surface. So you can either settle for a matte finish, or keep filing, grinding and polishing until it has gone.
These Scotchbrite polishers from Cooksons also work well for this, without being too destructive.
http://www.cooksongold.com/Jewellery...prcode-999-ACR. Dennis.
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Arrr ok, thanks Dennis - I might have one of those in my pack of polishing bits I got with my dremmel or foredom.
Will try this and see how it goes.
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Could you post a picture of your stripe so we have an idea before you attack it with anything else? Is it in the same place on every ring?
Last edited by CJ57; 19-10-2014 at 10:11 PM.
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I started out sanding by hand and could never get a finish I was happy with no matter how hard I tried or how many instructions I read.
I now use the Everflex rubber burrs on my pendant motor and haven't had any problems- unless it is fire scale when I found Dennis tip about the Scotchbrite to be a great one - I used that then back to the red then green Everflex.
http://www.cooksongold.com/Jewellery...prcode-970-360
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Thanks all - yes it is Caroline - same place - down the centre like another band! I looks like I haven't 'hit it' with the sandpaper but I have sanded every which way to try! I might try machine instead of hand - thanks for the suggestions.
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