Tumbling jumprings

I've been making some Byzantine bracelets (here's a close-up of a
section:
http://www.thebeads.com/images/byzantine.jpg) and have been tumbling
the rings and finished bracelets in mixed stainless steel shot with
water and a squeeze of Ivory dishwashing detergent. Apparently one
time I didn't add enough of the Ivory and when I opened the lid the
water was murky and the bracelet was discolored (more the color of the
shot). I've been told that because there wasn't enough lubricant, the
stainless steel actually transferred to the silver. Does anyone know
of a pickle that will remove this?

Also, is it okay to tumble different metals together, say brass and
silver, and is there any metals that shouldn't be treated this way or
any that will adversely affect the stainless shot?

Thanks!

Mary Ann
http://www.thebeads.com/

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 08:15:13 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry
(Mary Ann) wrote:

I've been told that because there wasn't enough lubricant, the
stainless steel actually transferred to the silver. Does anyone know
of a pickle that will remove this?

Probably not the stainless transferring. It's much harder than the silver, and
generally doesn't "transfer" in any case. But without lubricant, the surface
stuff from the silver didn't rinse away, and got burnished back into the silver.

It's not likely to be strongly adherant. I usually find, when things discolor,
that if I wash the shot and items well (just rinse them well), put them back in
the tumbler, this time with plenty of lubricant (your soap), and tumble them
some more, that the situation self-corrects well enought.


Also, is it okay to tumble different metals together, say brass and
silver, and is there any metals that shouldn't be treated this way or
any that will adversely affect the stainless shot?

Mixing two metals if very different hardness, without enough lubircant,
*sometimes* will discolor the harder metal. I've seen gold, tumbled with
silver, end up with a surface film on it. But with plenty of burnishing
lubricant, and especially with smaller loads in the tumbler (less items per
volume of shot), there's not usually a problem. and, as before, often just
tumbling some more with cleaned shot and rinsed items and lots of lubricant will
fix things easily enough.

Peter

"Mary Ann" wrote in message
...

Hi Mary Ann

I've been making some Byzantine bracelets (here's a close-up of a
section:
http://www.thebeads.com/images/byzantine.jpg)

And very nice too.


and have been tumbling
the rings and finished bracelets in mixed stainless steel shot with
water and a squeeze of Ivory dishwashing detergent. Apparently one
time I didn't add enough of the Ivory and when I opened the lid the
water was murky and the bracelet was discolored (more the color of
the
shot). I've been told that because there wasn't enough lubricant,
the
stainless steel actually transferred to the silver. Does anyone know
of a pickle that will remove this?

I don't know of a pickle that will do this, (I'm sure someone here
may know differently), but I've had this problem with a gold chain in
the past. I ended up literally scrubbing my shot with a lot of soap
and water and then putting the shot in the ultrasonic tank in small
batches. Whilst I was doing this, I'd put my chain in the meths and
boric acid, and then annealed the whole chain, and then put it into
normal pickle.

The trick with this is that when all of your shot is clean and can
tumble with fresh warm solution, (and plenty of it g), then your
bracelets will be ready to tumble again.

They'll look like new! (Well, it worked for me).


Also, is it okay to tumble different metals together, say brass and
silver,

I've never tried, but I've read somewhere never to mix brass with
silver.


and is there any metals that shouldn't be treated this way

I could be wrong here, but pewter might not work too well in shot?

or
any that will adversely affect the stainless shot?

Again, I can't think of anything other than pewter. I've never tried
it, but I would think that the pewter would ahere to the shot somehow.
shrugs

Good luck!

-SP-



Thanks!

Mary Ann
http://www.thebeads.com/

"It's not likely to be strongly adherant. I usually find, when things
discolor,
that if I wash the shot and items well (just rinse them well), put
them back in
the tumbler, this time with plenty of lubricant (your soap), and
tumble them
some more, that the situation self-corrects well enought."

Thanks Peter. I did try that, but there is still some visible
difference between this chain and others I have done. Darker. It's not
really a big problem, except for a partially made chain I had done the
same thing to. When I finished the chain, the differences were much
more obvious.

Mary Ann
http://www.thebeads.com/

I dont tumble any of my work but have all the catalogues from way back
Circa 1900's for the UK main finishing co, Canning %Co. In these they
cover every concieveable way of finishing by tumbling with all sorts of
media inc abrasive compounds and rouges either dry or wet.
My guess is that the golds you are using could be from a different
production batch tho of similar carat and that theres an electrolytic
action of some sort taking place between the shot and the items being
barrelled and the chemical content of your wash up liquid. This contains
Sodium carbonate with other surfactants and will affect your metals..If
you take some of your wire stock and boil it in a stainless pan with
yourwater and washup liquid you will see what I mean.
The way to test this out is to use a hard white hyfin polishing
compund on a NEW and unused mop and run some polishing tests .Support
your jump rings on a tooth pick or kebab stick if larger, let them spin
on the stick, Then compare the colours of the polished metals in good
daylight with the barrelled items. You should then be able to see if
your barrelling finish is a TRUE one or has some adherent coating. To
give you another example of contamination, if you use say lead acid
battery acid as is( mild sulfuric) in a stainless pan with brass jump
rings or buttons etc you will find that there will be an electrolytic
plating action and the stainless pan will become copper coloured. The
only way to strip this is to use Aqua Regia. If you dont know how to use
this or make it up, dont try. Its a mixture of Concentrated Sulfuric,
nitric and Hydrochloric acids and sodium chloride.
Another way to clean up your shot and jump rings is to add to your water
say half a teaspoon of whiting , or fullers earth, or an inch or two of
toothpaste but no detergent. This will mildy abrade and clean up
everything.The choice of flavour will be yours. My choice is for Arm and
Hammer.
Try bottled spring water or soft well water instead of what comes out of
your tap and try another washing up liquid. There quite strong
sometimes. A few shavings of one of those transparent soaps we have them
here known as Pears is better than wash up liquid. Or a soft soap from
your chemist. One teaspoon full to a UK pint of water. We know this as
soft soap BP( British pharmacopea grade) You will have the US
equivalent.
Let us know the results of the polishing tests.
Ted Frater

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 23:43:54 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry "ted.frater"
wrote:


Ted, I must disagree with a couple details in your posting...

To give you another example of contamination, if you use say lead acid
battery acid as is( mild sulfuric) in a stainless pan with brass jump
rings or buttons etc you will find that there will be an electrolytic
plating action and the stainless pan will become copper coloured. The
only way to strip this is to use Aqua Regia.

You can remove a copper flash plate like this with nitric acid, hydrochloric
acid, or sulphuric acid. All will dissolve copper just by themselves. You can
even remove it with ordinary sodium bisulphate pickle compound, if you add to it
some hydrogen peroxide. This has the advantage over the acids of not affecting
silver or gold, only the copper. Nitric would be trying to dissolve the the
silver as fast as the copper. Sulphuric acid by itself also works, and doesn't
dissolve silver. Hydrochloric acid doesn't fully attack sterling silver, since
silver chloride formed by the acid adheres to the silver surface, and isn't
soluable, so it prevents further action. But it ends up looking smutty/yucky.

Now, aqua regia will indeed dissolve the copper. But it's WAY overkill for this
use, and rather dangerous stuff. Like straight hydrochloric acid (the main
componant of aqua regia), it doesn't easily dissolve sterling silver, but has
more of an effect than does hydrochloric alone.

If you dont know how to use
this or make it up, dont try. Its a mixture of Concentrated Sulfuric,
nitric and Hydrochloric acids and sodium chloride.

Well, that would certainly be a nasty mix, but it's not aqua regia. Aqua regia
is only hydrochloric acid and nitric acid, without sulphuric. Usually, one uses
three parts HCL (hydrochloric) to one part HNO3 (Nitric) And adding sodium
chloride would be silly, and to no additional effect, since the sodium ion
would do nothing, and the hydrochloric acid already provides an abundance of
chloride ion. Now, you can get a very weak variation on aqua regia's action by
adding sodium chloride to nitric acid. Doing this gives you the nitric, with
only a small number of chloride ions present, so while it does then attack
golds, it does it rather slowly. . I find this most useful when doing
touchstone testing of gold alloys. It means that I don't need to use both
nitric and hydrochloric acids mixed, and it acts more slowly than the mixed
acids, making the reaction a bit easier to evaluate

Personally, I doubt her problem is electrolytic in nature, but I agree that it's
possible. I more strongly suspect some sort of oxidation or similar chemistry
forming an oxide, sulphide or similar compound on the surface, or perhaps some
complex breakdown product of the soap complexing with the fine metal particles
in the mix. Something like that. Or, as she suspects, the softer metal has
rubbed itself into the harder metal. An electrolytic plating reaction would
mean the deposition of a metallic coating on the jump rings. her description of
the look doesn't suggest that to me, plus for that to occur, something in the
electrolyte must be capable of ionizing/dissolving one of the metals in order
for it to then deposit as an electrolytic layer. I don't expect the soap's
she's using have that ability. That leaves a mechanically deposited layer,
perhaps of fine particles of metal, or some complex of them with the soap.
Given that the burnishing action of the shot can drive all sorts of foreign
materials into softer surfaces in some situations, that's my guess for the
mechanism of the deposit.

Peter

Hi all,

Very interesting thread. I have only one small thing to add and that is when
I bought my Barrel polishing machine I was told that if I lived in a hard
water area not to use tap water because it would turn silver grey. Which it
does. I use distilled water and pure soap and seldom have a problem.

Hillary
--
Hillary Corney
Designer Silversmith and Jeweller
http://www.designersilversmiths.com

-SP- wrote:
....

The trick with this is that when all of your shot is clean and can
tumble with fresh warm solution, (and plenty of it g), then your
bracelets will be ready to tumble again.

They'll look like new! (Well, it worked for me).

An additional exprience, espacially with silver is, tumbling only a short
time (20 minutes). Dark colour will accrue from steel abrashive getting
pressed in the weak surface of silver.
So I start always without silver for minmum 30 minutes, then change the
water and add the silver for a second run.

--
Heinrich Butschal
http://jewels.butschal.com

"ted.frater" wrote in message
...
The
only way to strip this is to use Aqua Regia. If you dont know how to use
this or make it up, dont try. Its a mixture of Concentrated Sulfuric,
nitric and Hydrochloric acids and sodium chloride.

Aqua Regia, Royal Water, is not as you say. It is, instead, a mixture of
Nitric Acid and Hydrochloric Acid. One volume Nitric to three volumes
Hydrochloric. It will dissolve Gold and other "Noble" metals.

--


Don Thompson

Ex ROMAD