Tumble Polishing a Jewelry Bright Spot

Tumble-polishing is a great way to finish off your handmade metal jewelry. It's much cleaner than buffing on a wheel and is usually much quicker. In fact, all by itself, tumble-polishing can produce a near-mirror finish.

It cleans the jewelry and burnishes even hard-to-reach places such as the insides of ring shanks and pins, and gives a uniform finish you can take to market - no buffing compound residue to clean off either!

It's also a safe way to polish chains and other types of custom jewelry that are either difficult or unsafe to polish on a buffing wheel.

Tumble-polishing seems to work just as well on brass, copper, nickel-silver and precious metal jewelry.

Tumblers are readily available - check on eBay - but one thing to keep in mind is that the smaller they are, the more work they have to do to get the same results. That means they take longer, and wear out quicker.

But at least they're a cheaper way of trying out the technique to see how it fits with your jewelry making style.