For these projects we use the Glue Fix stones, meaning they need glue to stick to the surface. There are hot fix stones that you can iron or press onto surfaces that have the adhesive already on them. It gets activated with heat! Creepsakes Shop. Be Createful. The stones come in different sizes measured SS4-SS The SS stands for Stone Size and they coordinate with a millimeter measurement. It is most common for the cups to be done with SS16 or SS20 stones and other small sizes as fillers.
I like to use SS20 as my main stone because the stones are bigger. This means I will use less stones for the cup which means I can get it done faster! However, SS16 works great as well and it is totally up to your taste! The most popular color stones are Crystal and Crystal AB. The AB stands for Aurora Borealis and these stones have an iridescent finish that sort of creates different colors when the light hits them!
Watch this youtube video to see the difference! Many people use other colors too, but those are the most popular. It depends on whether you use the honeycomb method or scatter method. I would get an extra bag of whatever size you choose just to be safe! The smaller the stone, the more you will need to cover your cup. Make sure you get filler stones. The mixed sized bags are perfect for this. Most people choose 4 different size stones for a scatter method cup.
I would get a second bag of your larger stone to be safe as well. It does not damage metal in any way at all. It will not remove gouges, though it will smooth them and make them very shiny. Like all forms of burnishing, tumbling hardens the outer layer of the metal. The net effect can be significant hardening if the metal is very thin, such as headpins, but less dramatic with heavier metals. Although it doesn't seem as though it would be, tumbling is very gentle.
Even the most delicate pieces will emerge brilliantly polished and completely unmangled Even thin headpins will emerge still straight, as long as they don't get tangled with something else and bent as a result. For this reason, you'll want to be careful what sorts of items you tumble together.
You'll learn best about that with experience. There are rotary tumblers and vibratory tumblers. We don't use vibratory tumblers actually, we do now I'll add an update , but I understand that they work faster than rotary tumblers but also require more shot and are loud and tend to 'walk' with the vibration. We have eight rotary tumblers of two different brands, Lortone and Thumler.
Rotary tumblers sound soothing, like a waterfall, they don't walk around and we're not in too much of a hurry to appreciate that. You'll need to choose according to your own needs and preferences, of course, but the information here all relates to the rotary type. The Lortone 3A is a good tumbler in a good size for jewelry. The double barreled tumbler is the Lortone 33B.
The barrels are identical and interchangeable and the double barreled 33B can run just fine with only one barrel loaded. You'll need about two pounds of mixed, stainless steel shot to go in it. One pound will work, it just takes longer to get the shine. More than two pounds is likely to bog down the motor because of the weight. Stainless steel shot costs more than carbon steel, but it doesn't rust and become ruined in the absence of perfect caretaking so it's worth the extra investment.
It's not a good idea to use just one shape of shot because no matter which shape you get, that one shape won't touch every tiny nook and cranny of your jewelry pieces the way using all the shapes together will.
You can, however, live without pins, so get the shot without pins, if you can find it. They don't hurt the jewelry, but they're a pain to pick out of chain and hollow beads and you don't need them. The purpose of pins is to get into very deep areas, so you might want them if you're doing something unusual such as tumbling Bali silver with the intention of removing every bit of the color from the crevices to leave them totally bright and shiny.
The darkness in the crevices is what brings out the detail in Bali silver, though, so removing all of the color will generally leave it looking pretty bland. Tumbling Bali silver without pins definitely lightens it and brings up the shine on the high spots, but it leaves enough darkness in the low places to keep the detail.
I've read that pins can leave ping marks on flat, polished expanses of sterling and copper. I haven't personally experienced this, but I felt I should mention the possibility just in case.
If you can't find mixed shot without pins, you can always pick them out or, better yet, use a sieve with holes big enough to let them pass through and shake your new shot around in it til they all fall out. In addition to the tumbler and the shot, all you need is Dawn dishwashing liquid. Dawn is a degreasing dishwashing liquid commonly available in the US.
Original blue Dawn or Dawn Ultra also blue both work well in tumblers. If Dawn is not available where you live, look for a degreasing dishwashing liquid that does not contain bleach, moisturizers or other additives. We've heard that Fairy Liquid and Simple Green both work well, though we have not tested either of them ourselves.
There are as many 'recipes' for tumbling as there are people who do it and much of the advice people give is conflicting. In addition to the several hundred troy ounces of sterling rings we tumble every week, I've tumbled every piece of jewelry I've ever made and the shine speaks for itself. This is the way we do it and what we recommend. Run a new tumbler for a couple of hours with nothing but the shot, enough water to cover it and a couple of healthy squirts of Dawn the first time.
Rinse the tumbler and shot well afterward, then you're ready to go. With the clean shot in the tumbler, add the jewelry you can polish multiple pieces together, but fine chains will tangle and earring wires will tangle with chain, as well , a healthy squirt of Dawn and enough water to cover everything. Put the lid on snugly and tumble from half an hour to overnight.
As long as you put the lid on correctly, you don't need to worry about it sudsing up and blowing off. There have been times we've used more Dawn than any sane person ever would and the only time we've had even a minor bubble leak was when we didn't put the lid on well. Despite hundreds of hours of tumbling in multiple tumblers and running through many cases of Dawn, we've never had a single leak that amounted to more than a tablespoon of suds Some stones require special care.
Amber can be ruined in a tumbler because it can't stand to be soaked in water. Soft stones such as turquoise and malachite can lose their polish and become dull.
Brittle stones such as opal can shatter, pearls can have their nacre damaged, emeralds can seep oily resin and make a mess of everything else, as well as themselves It's always better to test tumble a lone bead or two than to take the chance of ruining a finished piece.
Having said all that, though, I have to also say I've never had anything ruined in the tumbler and I tumble everything. Except amber; I've never tumbled that because I ruined some once just soaking it in water.
Your mileage might vary, of course, so always test tumble a single bead if you are at all unsure. As mentioned before, mixing soft stones with hard stones can result in damage to the soft stones. Compare stones on the Mohs Scale if you aren't sure of their relative hardness.
Any time you feel worried, tumble an item alone; it's always the safest tumbling option. Use great caution when draining your shot into the sink. Always use a good sieve that can take the weight. If you drop even one piece of shot down the drain on the garbage disposal side, get it out by any means necessary before the disposal is turned on.
It only takes one piece of shot to ruin a garbage disposal. You might want to keep that method in mind, just in case. If you ever open your tumbler and find everything in there has turned mysteriously dark, don't panic. Although people often insist you need only one drop of Dawn, there is a limit to how much crud -- for lack of a more technical term -- can be held in suspension by one drop of Dawn.
If your jewelry has turned uniformly dark, it simply means that the crud removed has overloaded the amount of Dawn you used and been uniformly redeposited onto your jewelry. Rinse out the black water, put in fresh water and considerably more Dawn and tumble again. The answer to the mysterious darkness is always more Dawn. In our own experience, the mysterious darkness is always caused by overloading the Dawn which is a degreasing dishwashing liquid with more than it can hold in suspension.
Dirty shot, base metal contaminants and even hard water can all contribute to what has to be held in suspension. If the problem is very bad, the shot and jewelry will need to be cleaned separately prior to tumbling again.
It's very gentle on the pieces. I've cleaned pieces that had enameled copper and rather delicate stones and there has never been any damage done. It would be very gental, but it would also do nothing to tarnish.
Tumbler is the way to go. Stainless shot, a good professional burnishing soap and about a hour of your time.
I do this regularly with swarovski, bronze, silver, goldfill, Enameled copper, Annodized alluminum, anodized Niobium, and anything else I use. It's plenty gentle for most things. You need to worry about the stones maybe, assuming you have something other then crystals.
Pearls, opals, natural Turquoise, Amber, wood, Coral, if you use these you'll need a different method. Pearls disolve in just about anything, lovely as they are I'd much rather use the Swarovski version.
Frostfly, I have done this with pieces that were too delicate to put in a tumbler and it worked just as well as tumbling and yes, I do have a tumbler, I just don't always want to use it if I only have one or two pieces to clean.
I have also cleaned many pieces that used pearls some of them even dyed pearls and they came out just fine. For brass, copper and bronze I always use plain old lemon juice. Works a treat. Any abrasive polish or steel shot runs a risk of ruining the finish of the crystal or chipping it. My thinking is to use a chemical dip type polish, this way it should not ruin the finish on the crystal and remove the tarnish on the metal.
Take the piece in the palm of your hand, dump about a single serving packet's worth of ketchup onto it, and massage gently. Vigorously enough to make the maille move, but not so rough that you might chip or scratch the stones.
Do this for about 3 minutes or so, and rinse with hot water and maybe a little dish soap. I'm baffled as to why people insist that you should treat sterling and copper diffrently, It's the copper in the sterling that causes most of the tarnish. If you wanna use an acid be it vinigar, lemon juice or katchup it works exactly the same on brass, sterling, bronze, or copper.
If you leave stuff in an acid too long you're gonna end up with a blackened mess. A tumbler with stainless steel shot will polish it with very little work, it will not harm the crystals.
I've tumbled hundreds of peices with crystals attached. It does not remove material, it does not scratch stones. The ONLY time I would worry about tossing stuff in with the stainless is if I'm using a very soft stones pearls, I'm looking at you or using an annodized material niobium, Titanium.
Well, I can't say as I was insisting anything. Thank you for that. I use copper, sterling silver and brass wire wrapping with gemstones natural, not dyed, try to find hardness 5 and over My question concerns tumbling finished jewelry pieces with a mixture of the above. I haven't heard much about ceramic beads instead of steel shot. Does it only polish things? I was told it would be safe on stones but if it doesn't work harden wire or take off surface scratches from stone or wire, are they a "why bother" medium?
When do you use them, if ever? You mentioned tumbling may take off polish from rocks. Aren't they polished by tumbling, not dulled? Or are some of these gemstones polished using shiny product coatings instead?
How do we know when choosing gemstones such as jasper? Thank you so much for all the tips and tutorials. I just made my first ring with a rainbow moonstone cab. I realized after I finished burnishing that I put mars on the ring itself from the burnishing tool.
Can I tumble this? Is there a certain sandpaper I could use to remove some of the mars? Congratulations on finishing your first fabricated ring!
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