The final step in jewelry manufacturing is polishing a newly created piece to a mirror-like finish. This is easily done with a motor powered polishing machine. The machine has a motor that turns a polishing wheel, called a wheel buff.
Some polishing machines have two arms since two wheel buffs are needed – one wheel is stiffer and used first and the second wheel is softer and used second. Wheels are usually five to six inches in diameter and are usually made of muslin.
If you polish silver and gold, keep a tripoli wheel buff and rouge wheel buff for each metal as well (four total). Also, keep the wheels of each compound in separate bags so they do not contaminate each other.
Using a polishing machine is a dusty and dirty job, so ventilation is important. Many polishing machines come with blowers to capture dust. Rio Grande has a great selection of the very popular Dura-BULL polishing machines on their website.
We have an inexpensive jewelry polishing machine with no blowers, but it does feature two arms. Be prepared for a dusty mess though. Hoods can be purchased that do a fairly good job of catching dust. They are placed behind each wheel. You could build your own polishing machine too. You need a motor that runs at 1,725 rpm. You will need tapered spindles to attach to the motor in order to mount the buffing wheels. Know the diameter of the motor before purchasing the spindles. The motor then needs to be mounted securely to a work bench or table.
If you have any questions or need help to decide which jewelry polishing and finishing tools such as jewelry polisher buffer & jewelry rotary tumbler suitable for you, please don’t hesitate to contact us.