Back to class and back to filing.

The secret to getting a good finish and shine on your work is sand, sand, sand.

Most of the day is spent on this with a bit of a break when I hand drill a hole into my roller skate charm, breaking 2 drill bits in the process.

By the afternoon items are beginning to look finished and all they need now is a final polish.

I put a lot of my items into the drum polisher but polish my single ring on the polishing machine.

Or try to anyway.

On my first attempt there is too little polishing compound on it so it goes red and sticky with the compound.

On my second attempt the machine grabs the ring out of my hand and throws it across the room, fortunately not hitting me or anyone else, but adding a nice few dents to it.

Back to filing again as I spend half an hour removing the dents.

Third time on the polishing machine and as I struggle to hold the ring and worry about it being grabbed again I lose my nerve and pass it onto my teacher to do instead.

Bad move- he then decides he wants me to grind out the inside of my ring for a different look.

So off I go to grind, knowing that there’s no way the outside of the ring will escape undamaged.

I am right and because of the angle of the inside of my ring I have managed to put a couple of small scratches onto it.

Back to sanding, sanding, sanding…

Then back to the polishing machine one last time where my less nervous than me teacher adds the final shine to the piece and I am finally able to walk away with it done!