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I am making sterling silver bails from strip silver to use on dichroic cabochons and need to polish bails to a shine. I have been using a polishing wheel with compound but boy that is messy and very time consuming. I have heard that some folks using a rock tumbler and so I bought 2 grits with one being very fine little balls and the other was polishing grit that was like powder. Do you have to use any type of liquid suspension in the tumble jar? I tried both but assume this takes a day or so .

Can anybody shed some light on the subject and thanks in advance
Steve "indianaglassman"

Steve, why can't you just dip them? I was at a market today buying sterling chain, and the girl behind the counter dipped it, and then blasted it with a steam machine. It was very clean and shiny.

what were they dipping them in sounds great -was the dip heated or what kind of chemical I wonder

Steve,

See my response to your other post.

Alecia

Steve, I don't know what they were using. Here at home I have a liquid chemical dip called Instant-Dip Sterling Polish. I think I got it at the grocery store. It gets the tarnish off and I think I've had the same bottle for 5 years. Dip, rinse and dry. You might also try a jewelers rouge cloth. I think that's what they are called. Looks like a felt pad, but it gets tarnish off too, no chemicals. But if they are getting oxidized in the kiln, then what Alecia said.
Are you putting them in the kiln or glueing?

Cheaper is a box of washing soda, hot water and a piece of aluminum foil. Mix the washing soda with the water in a bowl, put the aluminum on the bottom and touch your dirty silver piece to the foil. Instant cleaning.
Kevin

wow I thank you all for the helpful hints and what to evaluate as well - guess I had better try them all and retain that knowledge -again thank you for the great responses

For polishing metal I use stainless steel shot instead of grit. I know other metalworkers use this as well. It only takes an hour or two to polish silver up this way.
Also, dipping solutions with take tarnish off metal but they do not make it shine. You will have to mechanically polish it for that.

now do you use any kind of liquid in the shot as I have heard and read that others are using water - just does not seem right but I have never done this either - I know the rock folks use a liquid suspension

Use a little soap with stainless steel shot.
Be sure to keep the load clean as the silver will be burnishing in dirty water if not clean .
If the silver is textured you will get a great polish with ss shot and soapy clean water . If large & very flat will not be as good as Polish. If small and flat may be ok (like a bail).
You can follow this with tumbling in walnut/corn/wood media that has a polishing compound in it (our you add).

i'm one of those people using a tumble vibe (TV5), for cleaning off compound after polishing, not for achieving the initial shine. i use a foredom with felt buff and white compound to polish nichrome wire i've fused into dangle earrings. i put the earrings in the TV5 to clean gunk off. my tumbler is loaded with stainless steel pin shot, water, and a squirt of lemon detergent.

to polish silver, some people like to put corn cob with polishing medium in their tumble vibe, dry. you can buy crushed corn cob from Rio Grande. a friend here makes lily earrings, and he told me after 3 days in corn cob, which is a very soft medium, the look of the silver is extremely beautiful.

in order to get a fine polish on silver, i think you'll need more than dipping the first time you bring up the shine. in my experience, the dips work best on a polished metal surface that has tarnished, but not to create that first polish. when i polish my silverware, i sometimes dip it, but it isnt a good final finish -- i also use silver cream. the dips are good for budging tough tarnish.

i'm in a big hurry when i'm polishing earrings (or sterling pendant parts), so i cant afford to leave these things running in the tumbler for a day. they get some minutes, not many hours. plus, in the case of earrings, you cant just throw a bunch of them into a tumble vibe together unless each pair is very different, or they get all mixed up. i usually put in about 10 or 15 pairs that are different colors, and let it run about 10 minutes while i'm doing something else.

if those bails looks pretty good after you cut and bend them, maybe you can do a dip ... dunno. they certainly will glow if you tumble in crushed cob, and you could do a large number at a time, too.