polishing lathe | Eileen Moylan

Summer Courses

03.01.2012 by Eileen Moylan //

I just got a brochure for this summer’s jewellery courses at Birmingham City University. I spent last night going through the catalogue marking all the courses that interested me. If you’ve seen the line up for this summer you’ll understand how difficult it is to narrow down my choice. They have a brilliant classes taught by really accomplished makers.

You might remember that I went on the Syncalstic and Anticlastic forming course last summer which was taught by Cynthia Eid. It was such a great week, I learnt more than I could have possibly imagined in such a short space of time and I also got to visit all my favourite tool shops in the jewellery quarter. Considering my obsession with buying new and not so new tools this was like being let loose in a toy shop for a week. The weight of my suitcase coming home is testament to how little restraint I have when it comes to jewellery tools shopping.

So here are a few of the course I really want to go on this summer.

Creative Metal Forming with a Hydraulic Press by Cynthia Eid. This class combines using a hydraulic press with surface enrichment techniques. As part of the course you get to make and use your own embossing and silhouette dies.

Creative Microfolding, foldforming and Argentium Silver, Cynthia Eid. Fold forming is a technique I would love to improve and refine. It can create the most amazing effects and as this technique makes the metal stronger you can create very light but strong three dimensional forms.

Enamelling Introduction by Tamizan Savill. I’ve never had the opportunity to study enamelling and this course sounds like the perfect way to dip my toe into it and explore various techniques. I met Tamizan in Birmingham last year and saw some of her amazing work.

Keum Boo Embellish Silver with Gold, Katherine Campbell-Legg. Keum Boo is the technique of decorating silver with very thin sheets of gold foil. With gold prices increasing this is a great way of achieving that lovely gold silver contrast without the major expense.

Polishing Masterclass by Stephen M Goldsmith. As I mentioned last week polishing is one of those jobs I would rather not have to do. I’ve been thinking maybe it’s because I’m just not very good at it! So a course like this would be great to make me a better and more efficient polisher.

So there you have my summer course wish list. Would love to hear what courses interest you.

Busy Workshop Day

08.19.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

I’ve been busy with the business side of things this week so I was delighted to get back to the workshop properly today. The break made me all the more productive, I even took some photos to prove it!

Check out my new tapered polishing mop, it’s for polishing inside vessels.

I just took this photo to show off my new pink glitter pliers! Aren’t they amazing and you can’t misplace them on a messy bench.

Fire Stain: What is it and how to prevent it

03.14.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

This week in the workshop I had the hassle of dealing with fire stain. If you have tried silver soldering you may be familiar with the scourge that is fire stain. Just when you think you’re nearly finished and you begin the final stages of polishing on the lathe those nasty little blotches appear. For those of you lucky enough not to what this looks like it is a pink or purple stain that can develop in sterling silver during soldering.

Here’s the science bit… The oxygen in the air penetrates the outer surface of the object oxidizing the copper content in the sterling silver. The silver is then pickled in sulfuric acid which removes the oxidized copper on the surface. This oxidisation is known as fire scale. The difference is that fire stain can’t be removed in the pickeling process. The problem with fire stain is that it discolours the reflective nature of the polished silver and either needs to be covered by plating or filed away.

Mostly you don’t see the extent of the fire stain until you have the piece polished and finished. The best way to see it is to hold the silver against a piece of white paper. This way you have a uniform white reflection on the silver that highlights the pinky purple stain.

Here’s a photo of a cuff link that I made recently that had some fire stain. You can see the pink blotches on either side of the cut away circle design. There are lots of things you do to remove fire stain which involve chemical solutions or silver plating. Unfortunately this can be expensive and because it doesn’t happen me that often I haven’t seen the need to invest in them. The other method for getting rid of the fire stain is by abrasive removal using either a polishing lathe or other abrasive techniques. I think the best way to remove it is to use some wet emery paper on the stained area. It can be slow work but it allows you to concentrate on the area as opposed to a polishing lathe which can soften the sharp edges and detail of a piece. Once you have removed the patches of fire stain you can then finish the piece on the polishing lathe.

Removing fire stain with wet emery paper

The ideal solution to fire stain is to prevent it from happening in the first place. As the oxygen is the cause of the stain many silversmiths recommend creating oxygen free conditions when soldering. Ganoskin have a good piece on how to go about achieving this, to see it click here. I find the best way to prevent fire stain is to make sure you are using the correct size flame for the piece you are soldering. A very hot flame can over heat the piece but also a flame that is too soft means it takes much longer to melt the solder. Both these problems can cause fire stain. The other thing is to make sure the piece is clean so you don’t need to prolong the soldering process due to dirty metal.

Hope this helps in the fight against fire stain!

About

Spoon Part 4

03.04.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

This is part four of a series on how to make a spoon.

Click on the links to see Part one, two and three.

The spoon is nearly finished, all the cutting and hammering has been done. All that’s left to do is file and polish the piece. In this post I will go through the different stages of finishing as well as the tools and products I use.

I begin by filing the edges to even out any roughness. Once I’m happy with the shape of the spoon I remove the file marks with emery paper. I use different grades of emery paper from 320 to 1000 so I have less work to do on the polishing lathe.

Then I polish the spoon on the lathe. This is done using two different mops. The first is a roughing out mop which takes out the scratches and marks. This mop is made from numerous circular layers of fabric that are stitched together at the centre. The mop is used along with a polishing lustre. This is an abrasive compound that comes in a bar and is applied to the mop. While this initial polishing removes marks left from the emery paper it doesn’t bring up a bright reflective finish.

The next stage of polishing on the lathe uses a softer mop which is made up of layers of soft fine fabric. This mop is used along with a polishing rouge. Jewellers rouge is a red coloured compound bar that is used in the final stages of polishing. This rouge like the luster is used on the wheel to refine the surface. The rouge helps to obtain a fine mirror finish on the metal.

Because of the shape of the handle I use a small mop on my drill to get into the areas that the larger mop can’t polish. Like the polishing lathe I use the same lustre and rouge to bring up the finish. Now that all the marks have been polished out and the metal is bright and reflective I can clean the piece in the ultrasonic.

I’m going clean the spoon and set it up to be photographed over the weekend so I’ll post the results on Monday.

Cake Slice Part Four

02.09.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

This is part four of a series on making a cake slice. Click on the links to see Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3.

Having cut out and filed my cake slice I was short one tool before I could take it any further. Since I was making this for myself, it didn’t really count as a necessity buy. Well now I’ve got everything in order and am ready to plough ahead with the project.

The first thing I did once the piece was cut out, was to polish it on the lathe. I did this so I wouldn’t have to struggle getting into the hard to reach angles once I had formed the handle.

When the piece was cleaned and polished I began to mark out the dip from the handle to the base. The reason I do this is so I can have a line as a guide when I chase the lines into the metal. Chasing is a technique where you use a variety of punches struck with a hammer to create a design or detail. For my cake slice I want to create a straight line across the base so I can then fold the metal along this indented line.

The piece is then held in the vice to bend it into shape. I brought it to a 45 degree angle but this can be increased or decreased when I have the handle work done.

The next thing to do was to anneal the handle so it would be easier to manipulate. Annealing is the process of heating metal to a particular temperature and then cooling it quickly so the metal is softened. The metal is then cleaned in a pickling solution as all the impurities have risen to the surface when the metal is annealed. This cleans the metal so it can be used on your stakes. It’s really important to clean all metal that you are working with. Not only does it damage your tools it can also play havoc with soldering. A joint will not solder so easily if it isn’t clean.

Now that my cake slice is nice and clean it’s time to start hammering…block your ears!

My New Stakes

01.10.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

Before Christmas I bought a second hand set of stakes that were advertised in the Benchpeg newsletter.

The great thing about getting second hand tools is the price, the only downside is that sometimes they require a little work to get them cleaned up and ready to use. I spent a day over the holidays working on the stakes to bring them back to life.

The spoon stakes I got are nearly perfect and just needed a light clean and polish. The two larger domed and flat stakes and the smaller saddle stake have some rust that needed a bit of extra elbow grease.

In an effort to speed up the process I googled how to remove rust. There were a million and one suggestions but the few logical ones I tried like baking soda and vinegar made very little difference. Here are some photos of my stakes before and after and the restoration process in between.

I began by cleaning the stakes with steel wool and WD40 to remove the rust.

The next step was to use the polishing lathe and roughing out mop. Once the heads of the stakes were clean I gave them a final polish with the softer polishing mop.

To keep my lovely new stakes rust free I gave them a wipe of oil.
and here are my stakes all shiny and clean and ready to use.