Hello all, I'm hoping to get some advice about how to grind and polish the insides of metal slides that I use to make dog collars.metal slides.png
The collar webbing is lined in satin, so the insides of the metal pieces have to be perfectly smooth. Most of my slides are either solid brass or nickel-plated brass. For eight years, I have used a dremel to grind the inside and then an extra fine file to hand polish the inside. This is incredibly tedious and hard on my hands. More recently, I have run a metal cable cord through the pieces in place of the extra fine file. This is better, but still not ideal. Is there a machine or a better dremel head that will allow me to get a perfectly smooth satin finish on the inside without having to hand file? I've tried grinding stones, rubber, silicon, felt, leather. Nothing gets it as smooth as hand filing. Is there a dremel bit that will achieve the same finish? I will say that I have used the wire brush dremel heads, and they do polish quite well, but they don't last long at all (not even a day's worth of filing) and the wire pieces fly off and get everywhere, including in my skin.

Also, are there any vibratory bowls that would be able to smooth and polish the insides of the pieces? And if so, would they take off the nickel finish on the solid brass pieces? Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Amanda
Attached Images




Read the full thread at metalworkforums.com...