HarlequinWeave

Vice pad inserts with rubber on the inside work best. Amazon has tons of options

I use TIG welding rods for a ton of my work. As long as there is no flux incorporated it is essentially the same as the spool wire. Welding metals also have to be better in their alloy mixes as far as purity which has been a big appeal to me.

I assume it's a soapstone finish. It's drawn dull. From experience with other stainless that I have purchased it can be polished. I use the tumbling media that has abrasives in it to wear down the dull finish, start with an aggressive media first and then go to finer. You might even get a really nice finish with some rogue or polish mixed in with stainless shot for a final polish. When I say start with aggressive a pile of broken ceramic is a good start.

Ok I just have to ask, are you doing macro maille or something? That's awfully large wire diameters.

Has anyone hit a sweet spot on how to anodize finished pieces? Like good color consistancy across the entire piece. So far I have colored coils, which invariably leaves me with a couple voltage color gradients lower on the inside of the rings. And I have colored finished pieces which seem to me that voltage does not travel evenly across the piece either due to rings being not perfect conductors since they are saw cut and butted or perhaps due to the fact that anode connection across the finished piece has consisted of a single filament of titanium. If anyone has insight or suggestions into this I would love feedback. Currently working with a nice little 0-120v DC direct power supply and using a borax water electrolyte bath.

No feedback at all on this? No one with experience in this particular area?

How long do you guys tumble with the stainless shot Lorenzo?

The sleeves are just a simple cable knit stitch. I bet they found some grey acrylic yarn that fit the bill and had someone knit it up. Rather disappointing that passes for chain maille. Adding in movie sound effects like slinking metal and you're covered! GO Hollywood!!

So I have a really thick JPL 3 silver necklace and it builds a fair amount of tarnish over time. The usual aluminum foil, baking soda and hot water bath simply doesn't remove it all as the tarnish with JPL tends to get deep into the weave. I decided to try a combo method, in my jewelry tumbler I put in hot tap water, baking soda, a couple grape sized clumps of aluminum foil and the necklace. The normal stainless shot was still in the tumbler at the time and I did not add dish soap as I normally would. After about an hour and a half the results were astounding, the silver looks like brand new as the day I coiled and made the rings. Of note there was no scarring on the rings from this process and it got all the way inside the rings cleaning the deepest parts of the weave. Has anyone else tried something similar? I may start using this for all deeply tarnished / hard to clean silver pieces now.

I'm curious to know what grade tungsten wire you used. I am under the impression from researching that high purity tungsten wire doesn't have a high incidence of shattering.

Literally just crushed aluminum foil to about a grape size each and probably about 6 or 7 of those are put in the tumbler with about 1/4 cup baking soda and 2 cups of water.

You could try aggressive media, ie; the plastic pyramids that have abrasives impregnated in the shot. You can pick them up at Harbor Freight for cheap, they refer to them as rust removing media or corrosion cutter. In my experience that's just about enough to knock out that layer after about 3-4 hours. Good luck!

I think that would have driven me past the point that is commonly accepted as insane.

The difference between 14g and 10g for me in weave is dramatic. I can use the 6" knipex pliers for 14g but when I go to 10g I need 9" linesman pliers. Leverage is key.

How are you coiling it? I use a table set up that would never endanger my hands lol

I do saw cut with 10g (I assume you mean in SWG). I can for sure do 3/4" and 1" ID possibly 1 1/4" just would have to test out some of the larger mandrels to see what I came up with. The only thing I would caution is that the grade TRL uses is a softer stainless, the grade I use 347 is much harder, I choose to use this grade because it has a better surface polish instead of the matte kind of finish on the softer wire. Have you ever worked in stainless at that size wire? If you are truly interested I would be happy to see if I can accommodate.

My best response is that if you haven't visited yet there is www.mailleartisans.org most people on here will agree that is the foremost place to go for tuts and general info