Hi,

Except for a casting class that I took, all of my polishing has been done using buffing wheels and/or rubber disks.  In the casting class we used a rotary tumbler with stainless steel shot which, I guess, burnished the pieces.  None of the finished pieces had settings for stones.

I'm comtemplating getting a tumbler for finishing some of my pieces, but have one major concern. 

If I have various kinds of settings on the piece (either bezel or prong), will the tumbling and burnishing work harden the sterling or fine silver so that I could encounter problems when setting stones?

Thanks,

Chris

I use a tumbler with stainless shot shot. I pre-finish with bobbing compound on a buff then tumble with Dawn dish soap as the lube. The peining action of tumbling will work harden metals. Experiment with tumbling times. If the work has bezels or prongs I limit the time to 1 hour and have no problem moving the metal. It will require some time on the rouge buff. Pieces w/o settings can go for hours and the peining action will work harden the surface. Watch to make sure your textures aren't being affected. There is a photo of my polishing room on my website that shows my tumblers. Good luck - my tumblers are used every day and are great time savers! Judie Raiford RaifordGallery.com

I'm no expert but my experience with a tummbler is that is that it rounds offf the edges if left over night. I have yet to tumbled a pice with stones. But I am told not to as it may change the shape of the stone. Time tests might have to be made  to see if we can get away with polishing without damaging.

 GatesForShort
 

Some stones are hard enough to be tumbled with steel shot. I've set garnets with the metal dead soft and tumbled to work harden and burnish. I prefer not to set stones in work-hardened metal if possible. (once I even put turquoise in the steel shot, but that was not wise...) Another cool trick with steel shot is to apply a liver of sulfur patina to the metal before tumbling. The burnishing effect will not remove the patina, but give it a shiny quality that almost resembles hematite.