Polishing

[Tengu]

Well, sometimes I need to polish stuff.

The latest is some old cowrie shells. They are nice ones but have lost the vital cowrie shine.

So I got out my dremel clone, nothing to polish with.

I tried;

toothpaste
brass polish.

Both light abrasives.

But I can only get them up to `satin`

I need them `gloss`

Wht should I be using? You have no idea how depressing satin finish cowries are.

 

[Toddy]

I know someone who made a good living selling Scottish Seashore Jewellery....wee pebbles of nice shapes that he araldited to a pendant bail and then dipped into clear varnish. The varnish acted like water does and brightened the colour and it made them shine too. Should work on the shells too.

Hear Tengu ? that might make a nice wee sideline for you ? Seaglass would be lovely strung like that or matched up to make earrings.

M

 

[C_Claycomb]

Did a quick search and it appears that people use regular polishing compounds, fine white or even "rouge".

If I didn't have those, I might try an automotive polish.

There is something else though. There are some serious health warnings associated with polishing shells. Polishing compound dust isn't good, but the dust of shells can be worse. I have watched videos of people using dremel grinding stones on shells without any sort of dust mask and know that all sorts of particles are getting inhaled. Clearly you can't polish under water. I would wear a mask and do it outdoors, but that might not be an option for you.

 

[Dave Budd]

furniture wax would also work in place of varnish

I agree with Chris on the abrasive polishing front. I've polished horn and stuff using fine white polishing compound (like a dry version of autosol) on a loose polishing mop. It doesn't make it shine, but prepares the surface for the wax polish. In my case I've used carnuba wax on a loose cotton mop, but a tin of polish will work too

 

[oldtimer]

Diluted "white glue" such as Marvin Medium is commonly used in schools for putting a gloss on things.

 

[Robson Valley]

I cut and carve and polish pieces of sea shell, such as abalone, for use as inlay in many of my wood carvings.
I have excellent dust control, I work with stones in a drill press, right in the open mouth of the dust pick-up.
Lee Valley crepe rubber stick to clean the crap out of the grind stone. It's only the stuff that looks like smoke that concerns me.

Polishes are abrasives. All of them. Particle size can be measured as manufactured.
Chromium Oxide is usually 0.5 micron (micrometer) and green in color.
Aluminum Oxide id snow white but may have pigment added, about 0,25 micron
Oxides of iron and copper vary through blacks to rust (!!) reds, sold as 0.25micron.
Jeweler's rouge is iron oxide, about 0.2 micron.

If you can't seem to get beyond satin, the surface is scratched, a 10X magnifier will show that.

The ferromagnetic properties of iron particles don't emerge until down into the nanometer particle sizes.
I tried to use my Akai reel to reel tape deck on fast forward to polish a knife blade. Would take years.
An old floppy disk drive is just as bad.

For honing my wood carving tools, I use a waxy bar mix of Chromium Oxide and Aluminum Oxide (Lee Valley)
Highly recommended that I have not tried are Autosol and Flexcut Gold.

Water-wet glossy.
You have to fill the scratches with something that flows like paint. Lots of things already mentioned.
I find the shells have an unexpected gloss that doesn't look natural, not even wet.
Maybe a patchy finish as if partly dried? Beyond the cutting and shaping, I don't finish shell inlay at all.

 

[Janne]

Shell is calcium carbonate. Which is soft.
Pearls are from the same material, so google how to polish pearls using what, and you should be fine.

I suspect you micro scratched the shell surface.