"Rich Grise" wrote in message
...
My office opens onto a fab shop - machining on one side, where they
take big pieces of metal and cut them up into smaller pieces of metal,
and on the other side, welding, where they take small pieces of metal
and stick them together to make big pieces of metal. ;-)

The gal in the office is an artsy-craftsy type, who sells trinkets at
flea and tick markets and such.

Well, I had an idea - what if you took some chips:
http://mysite.verizon.net/richgrise/...MetalChips.jpg

and make exotic earrings with them? I'm sure something as crazy as that
would sell in places like Ventura or Laguna Beach, which are very artsy-
craftsy type communities, but they'd need to be tumbled to make them
safe to handle, obviously. You can't sell earrings that would accidentally
cut somebody's throat!

The artsy-craftsy gal in the office has a tumbler, presumably to polish
random rocks or whatever; my question is, to tumble chips like that, what
would be an appropriate media? I have a virtually unlimited supply of
bead-blast beads, and on rec.pyrotechnics they discuss tumbling media,
but that's for mixing BP (black powder) and stuff, probably not for
smoothing the cutting edges of chips. (they work with everything from
mild steel to inconel and hastelloy and stuff, which, being "exotic"
alloys, could probably bring top dollar in places like LB and Vent.

Any suggestions? She's going to bring in her tumbler next week, and I
can get or make virtually any kind of chip you can think of.

So, what would be a good media? BBs? Blast beads? mineral oil? Sand?

Thanks,
Rich


How about going a different way. Resin suspension. Can't be any worse than
bird poop ear rings. Might be nearly as interesting as resin encapsulated
scorpions were in the late 1970s.