#affiliate For this week’s
#tooltalktuesday I am talking about my Foredom Rotary Tumbler from our friends
@gesswein.jewelry I have owned four rotary tumblers before and to date this is my favorite. It is not the most expensive one I’ve owned either! If you are just starting out in your metalsmithing journey (welcome 👋) and are unfamiliar with tumblers, they burnish the surface of your jewelry pieces by rotating your work with media and a diluted soap solution. The most common media (and what I’m using in this demo) is steel shot (item 852-1086). You fill the tumbler barrel about 2/3 with water and you can use Burnishing Compound (item 852-1029) or Soap Powder (item 852-1039) or a drop of Dawn soap. Burnishing compounds are special formulated to burnish your jewelry and keep your steel shots clean. Keep in mind they are mildly acidic so I typically dilute even more than specified and if you are using a rubber barrel be extra careful as the acids can wear the barrel down over time. Tumblers with steel shot in general won’t remove scratches or polish away fire stain but all those shots rubbing against the surface will give your brass, silver, copper, gold etc a shiny finish. Some thinner elements of jewelry like earring posts and wires can also be hardened a bit. This topic has been debated quite a bit on this page :) and what I’ll say about it is I don’t think you are getting the same work hardening you would when you hammer, twist etc. but it does in my experience make a small impact. Back to this Foredom tumbler, I LOVE that it doesn’t have a belt (raise your hand if your tumbler currently has a book or shoe or anything else you could grab propping up one side to keep it rotating?!? 😂🙋♀️) It’s pretty compact, and the barrel is super easy to open and close. In the video I show off that it has 20 levels of speed control ranging from 5 to 100rpm. You can also program it up to 180 minutes and it will auto turn off. You can find this tumbler from our friends Gesswein (item 852-0132) and you can use code MSS5 to save 5% and support the page. If you are in CANADA use code: metalsmith. Thank you for tuning in!
#tumbler #jewelrytumbler
