How to make your own emery discs?

How to emerge a jewel

Emerging is a very important step in the manufacture of metal jewelry. It reduces the marks left by the file and prepares the jewel for polishing. Certain areas of a piece of jewelry can be difficult to access, and emery discs will help you reach these places.

To emery metal, we use emery paper. This is composed of emery powder, which is an impure variety of corundum. The coarseness of the grains that make up the paper will make it more or less abrasive. We start with the coarsest grain, then gradually move on to finer grain to finish. In general, between three and four passes are necessary before moving on to the polishing stage. I use 240 - 400 - 600 - 800 (or even 1200) grit.

• Between 150 and 240, it's for roughing.
• Between 240 and 600, for finishing.
• Between 800 and 2000, for advanced finishing.

It's very important not to sand the surface of your workpiece in the same direction. Always remember to cross the strokes for optimum emery.
The emery stage prepares the metal for polishing. If you want to obtain a beautiful polish, it's very important that the scratches have completely disappeared.

There are various tools available, the most common being a cabron or an emerger (a fly). Here, I'll show you a low-cost tip for making emery discs, adapted to your current project.

Using a dry-point compass, cut disks of different diameters and grits from your emery paper. Make several turns of the compass to obtain a perfect disc with clean edges, for precise, clean work.
Ideally, you should keep a small stock of discs by disc size and grit size.
Once the discs have been cut, you can mount them in either direction on the chuck. Quick and easy to do, these discs can be used in a number of ways:
Emerging the edges of a bocfil-cut
Emerging the bottom of a saw cut
Emerging the inside of a file-cut
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