Magnetic polisher build by Zapins

Got five of these "5x20mm 15A Slow-Blow Ceramic Fuse T15a 250v." The socket apparently takes "Fuse Size : 20 x 5mm / 0.8" x 0.2"(L*D)" according to the Walmart page for the socket. Got them from ebay of course: www.ebay.com/itm/5-Qty-5x20mm-15A-Slow-Blow-Ceramic-Fuse-T15a-250v-/400645212062?hash=item5d4850c79e:g:EJMAAMXQQtNRyd7a
I assume T15a is the fuse type?

Here are some pictures of the socket, I measured it and drew a little box where I wanted the hole.


Then I drilled out as much of the wood as I could and then used my Dremel with a tungsten carbide bit to gouge out the wood into a rectangle shape. Then I used a file to tidy it all up until the socket fit snugly.


And here it is pushed into place. Just need to paint the cabinet first, put the fuse in, wire it up and then I'll screw it into its final place.


Finished wiring it up. This is how I did it. The switch works and everything.


I didn't have a T splitter to make the connection for the white wire, so I drilled a tube connector and then stripped one of the wires and ran it through. Not sure if this is to code or whatever, but it seems to work well and protects the bare wire from touching anything.


Got some cable fastener things and tidied up the wires inside the cabinet. Going to attach the speed knob to a metal plate in the front and maybe get a larger dial for it.


This is the plug on the back all flush and in place. I'll prime and paint it soon with some latex paint. Perhaps 2 coats, maybe 3. Then I'll secure the plug in place and it should be ready to good.


I cut a slot for a metal plate that I can mount the dial into (the wood isn't fancy enough to attach the dial into). It would be nice to find a dial to slide over the white plastic peg. Something to grab onto. Perhaps I'll buy one, if I can find one, or maybe cast one?


Then I drilled, counter sunk and polished a piece of 1/8" steel plate I had lying around.


I also reorganized the wires in cabinet a bit so the wires don't bump into the shelf when the door closes.


Did a little more work on the dial area, polished the face plate up and bought a dial for the front.

I also filled in 2 spots where I originally tried to attach different hinges. I'll add another coat of the wood filler stuff tomorrow then sand it down. Hopefully when it dries it will allow latex paint to stick to it. Then at some point I'll finally get around to painting it.

Here are some examples of before and after polishing.

I just ran my first piece for about 10-15 mins. On the left is what the flower looked like before polishing, on the right is what it looks like after. The polish is fairly high for so little time in there. It also didn't dent or damage the piece in any way. I'm quite impressed with it so far. I'm running 2 more flowers now, then I'll run my little plant and see how it turns out.

I think that this polisher is going to turn out to have been well worth it.



After an hour and a half in the polisher:



Before the polisher (actually I did an acid bath after this picture, before I put it in the polisher but I forgot to take a pic of it!!)

@shotgunner he very first video (first image at the beginning of the thread) shows it running.

zapins - love the build and your tutorial is truly fantastic. Thanks for sharing!

I'm not sure, but I think it is because the pins are so low mass that they don't really dent the surface very much at all. Also, after spinning the pins around in the chamber the points dull and aren't sharp so they don't dig into the piece.

I have noticed that silver hardens up considerably once it has been polished in the machine. Probably because of the millions of impacts that slowly work hardens the surface. This helps for very thin castings like the orchid flowers and the aquarium plants.

The pins manage to find their way into every nook and cranny. Into places that can't be polished by hand at all.

I used some detergent soap to help lubricate the water and a little splash of ammonia.

After running the pins for a while the water tends to become murky with steel dust. It takes a few rinses with ammonia and running the polisher for a few minutes and repeat flushing to clean the dust off the pins and surface of the container. This has to be done fairly regularly to ensure the dust doesn't coat silver stuff. Also the faster the machine spins the more dust is made so I usually run it at around 2/3 of max speed.

I can visualise the pins in tiny nooks and crannies doing their work.

Thanks for the knowledge about keeping the solution clean. I'll bet some of the black is silver nitrate from the ammonia. Perhaps another way to increase pH?

Fantastic build. Looks like a finished product. That is a goal of mine that you have helped push me to work harder on. Thank you!

Interesting thought about silver nitrate causing the discoloration. That could be one possibility.

Thanks. The orchids and organic castings are pretty easy to do. I use a centrifugal casting machine with jewelry investment. I can probably post photos of that setup, but there isn't much to it really. Pretty simple & easy.