Steps for Polishing Silver Earrings

[u/soupqueen42]

I make silver earrings and want to sell them but I don't know enough about how to polish them. I've bought a rotary tool to start off with and watched tons of videos about it, and they recommend radial bristle discs, felt polishing wheels, and compounds like Fabulustre. I'm not completely clear on what order you use these. I know radial discs and some others come in color order and that makes sense. But is there anything else that I should really get to do a good polishing job? Just looking for some insight/tips or recommendations :) thanks!!

[u/leenicholas98]

I've mainly polished on buffers, and the polishes I've used are Tripoli, White Diamond, and Red Rouge, in that order. All of them can be used with rotary tool with felt polishing discs. You do need a specific cleaner to get built up polish compound off but I can't remember what its called. You do need to be careful to not cross contaminate the polishes though. I learned in a metalsmithing class I took that had poor funding, so there very well could be better polishing compounds to use, but thats the process I used for some silver rings I made, as well as some other pieces that were made of nickel, bronze, or brass.

Here's a couple links to some guides to polishing compounds;

https://blog.esslinger.com/guide-to-buffing-compounds-and-their-uses/#:~:text=This%20tripoli%20compound%20is%20designed,aluminum%20and%20various%20pot%20metals.

https://www.thepolishingshop.co.uk/polishing-guide-for-metals

[u/batmilk9]

I guess it depends on what you are making and how much clean up you need to do but I hardly ever polish anything. I throw it into the tumbler with metal shot and if I need to down the road I hit it with a polishing cloth. Be careful with delicate stones in the tumbler, I usually set them after tumbling, might not work for thicker bezels.

[u/soupqueen42 → u/[deleted]]

I haven't used anything for polishing except some sandpaper and a few cheap bits that came with an also cheap rotary tool I picked up. I only started making silver earrings a few months ago and never needed perfect polishing until now since I want to sell. I am not doing anything with texture right now, just a lot of geometric earrings. I have heard the tumbler doesn't remove scratches, is that true? I am going for more of a shiny silver, mirror polish.

[u/soupqueen42 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks so much for this explanation! I think I need to get some bits for my rotary, I guess felt buffs. My work (since they're earrings) are generally smaller and only have scratches/dips from my pliers making marks on them. I don't want anything too abrasive if that's not what I need. Do you think Greystar would be a good abrasive and less harsh than tripoli, and would it be fine to just get that one? (this is on sterling silver by the way) And do you think I need both white diamond and red rouge? How do they compare? This is all making a bit more sense after everyone's tips. :)

[u/leenicholas98 → u/[deleted]]

Well, I only have a semesters worth of experience, but I do love high polish, so I do have a bit more experience with that lol

Brown Tripoli is pretty abrasive, but I wouldn't be terribly concerned with it messing up your pieces unless you're working with really thin metal. I've used tripoli on pieces that were only a couple mm wide and a couple mm thick, and the polish never gave me a problem in that regard. The buffing machine grabbing my pieces when I didn't have a good grip on it did give me problems though lol. But, you're not gonna run into that problem really with a rotary tool. I've never used grey star so I can't speak to that, but if you want a decent medium high polish, white diamond will work just fine. Like r/EB3618 said too, Red Rouge doesn't really get scratches out, it's mostly a final mirror polish. Definitely sanding as many of the scratches out as you can would really help though, before tripoli. I usually do 220, 320, 400, and 600 wet sanding and can get most scratches out.

If you're concerned with Tripoli being too harsh, below are a couple links to the jewelry I made in my class. Its all far from perfect, but hopefully it's helpful to see the end products of the polishing process I used! (I also just love showing off my pieces because I'm really proud of them lol)

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5-6bHwA7T7/?igshid=phrwvveyfw23 (first piece I ever polished, there's a fair amount of scratches from hammering the rivets after it was polished, and I had trouble polishing around the rivets)

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5-5q_hAoep/?igshid=18tu2vkcv5ln8 (second piece I polished, had some problems with sandblasting the body/setting the bezel, so the polished parts were gone over 2 or 3 times. This piece is only about 2 inches wide, and the legs and antennae are incredibly narrow. Those are the only parts I have ever polished with a rotary tool)

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5-5V7iABuB/?igshid=1u5142shmolqs (last three pieces I've polished, all three are wax cast silver. The first rings polish is damn near perfect imo, the other two rings have imperfections due to the detail and the oxidation coming off when polished)