TEXTURING A SURFACE

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TEXTURING A SURFACE

A textured surface on a piece of jewellery, can enhance its aesthetic appeal. Jewellers often create their own textures, with punches and abrasives.

One of the simplest, effective techniques, is to use wire wool, to create a repeated ‘circular’ pattern.
Place wire wool on your thumb, press into the surface of the metal. Then, rotate your thumb / hand right and left. Repeat this, until the surface area is covered with the resulting pattern. The pattern looks a little like a ‘hammered’ finish. The walking stick handle shown below, has a finished produced by this technique.

A graver can be used to engrave parallel lines into a surface. This type of pattern can be made more complicated by two sets of lines, crossing each other.

A small grinding bit, fitted to a pendant drill, can be used to produce a textured finish, more defined, than the wire wool technique. Polishing mops also produce interesting finishes.

A small selection of diamond coated grinding bits for a pendant drill, are show opposite. Each one will produce its own unique texture on the surface of metal.

Polishing buffs / wheels, in combination with polishing compound, can produce a high quality finish OR a finely textured finish.

POLISHING COMPOUND

When polishing, selecting the correct ‘compound’ is important. Compounds are usually suitable for non-ferrous metals.

Tripoli is for removing imperfections in nonferrous metals.
Emery is a coarse compound, ideal for de-burring and surface texturing.
White compound is for a high quality finish.
Jeweller’s Red is normally used for polishing precious metals.

The diagram below, shows a polishing buff being applied to the surface of a nonferrous metal. When combined with the right ‘compound’, it produces a fine textured finish.

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