Thread: What are you working on?

Those will be some fancy snurdlers!
Meant to say before that striped set of razors is crazy. Like a still shot of special effects.

What type of grinder is needed to make a snurdler?

Bench grinder.

Tom-I like the snurdlers-cool idea! As for how I made the malachite wedge, I bought the necklace beads on Ebay. I just ground the bead down to about half a circle on my flat-bench 42" grinder outside, then flattened it on each side on sandpaper; I think I finished the flatted sides on 400-grit? It's very soft, only about a 3 on the Mohs scale, so easy to work. I used the drilling dust along with some thin CA to fill the necklace hole. The excess left-over after pinning was easy to grind off on a wet 400-grit belt, then up through my usual progression to finish.

And JP5, I could be wrong, but I don't think the recon stuff is so toxic, but a mask/respirator and good dust management is ALWAYS a good idea when grinding, sanding and buffing away on power tools, no matter what the material is! I would be happy to send you a couple of beads if you have any of that recon turquoise to play with-I think that would also look great with the sea-green acrylic or the paua I've been playing with too.

(Oh, and those arks are beautiful; I'm with the fan-boys trying to resurrect arkie honing on razors.) Aaron

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

I just finished up this Ern Ator in sea-green acrylic scales, a malachite wedge made from necklace beads, stainless dome collars and brass pins. The blade had some deep pitting and scratches, and hours of hand-sanding was putting my tang stamps in danger, so I just tried to give it a nice satin finish. As I told Tom, I'm an Ator whore lol! Here' a couple of quick phone pics:
Attachment 297777
Attachment 297778
Oh, some of you may know that malachite is dangerous to work with, and a respirator and washing up afterward is absolutely necessary due to the released copper compounds. I read some scary stories on the jeweler's forums.

That is a beautiful razor! Great job on the scales.

Hey I'm wondering if you guys will expand on the Fabulustre.
I noticed on eBay there is a grey stick of it, is there a line of compounds they make, a progression?
Which do you guys use?

Originally Posted by MikeT

Hey I'm wondering if you guys will expand on the Fabulustre.
I noticed on eBay there is a grey stick of it, is there a line of compounds they make, a progression?
Which do you guys use?

MikeT-This is what I have:
https://www.google.com/search?q=fabu...active&ssui=on
It looks like a small can of biscuits, and you just sort of unroll it as you use it up. I don't know of any progressions or if there are others, but I believe that it is essentially a final polish aluminum oxide "white" compound, as it is commonly called. I think it and products like Zam are used a lot by jewelry makers. used with a soft muslin or cotton wheel on a 1750 rpm buffer, it will produce a glass mirror like effect almost effortlessly on pretty much everything I've rubbed against it: woods, metals, acrylic, horn, whatever. It's the last step following your finest sanding efforts (usually 2k to 2500 if I want anything mirror-like, at least for me).

I don't know that it's any better than a white stick you can get at Home Depot. I got mine when I bought out the entire shop of a deceased knife-maker down in the Midlands of South Carolina several years ago, including multiple tubs of different buffing compounds and several bench-mounted buffers.

I believe Fabulustre is the product I got from my denturist. It is over the top amazing for buffing scales. A little on the wheel and the longer you buff the finer it gets. It’s like it breaks down finer and finer. I use it on bone and horn and polycarbonate. It is amazing, as you don’t have to sand to a high grit level at all to get an amazing finish. I do have some on order because my tiny cake I got is almost gone.

I got enough space cleaned out in my 3 stall garage so my wife can park her car in it for the winter.

I have spent the last 30 years trying to convince her that garages are not for parking street cars......

When I purchased a progression of greaseless compound about 5yrs ago, I liked having the progression from low to high, yet I wanted one higher than 600grit. The white block I had worked okay, but this product you guys suggested seems better. Looks magical!

Between 600 and white there is two other compounds, black or Emory and then brown or Tripoli and then the white, which can be followed with blue, then green, or perhaps the last two are backwards. Caswells site has a great chart.