Cutting shopmade metal beads

I collect interesting pieces of hardware for jewelry purposes, and many of the best would make great beads if only they were shorter. Objects longer than about 1/2 inch get in the way of a bracelet or necklace developing a nice curve and can be uncomfortable to wear.

So I gathered a bunch of those pieces and made them shorter with an abrasive cut-off wheel mounted in the compound mitre saw.

The face shield and gloves are not optional -- some of the chunks I’m cutting are brass or aluminum, but some are steel, which throws very hot particles of red-hot metal. I had tiny red burns all over my left hand the first time I tried this. And possible disasters include red-hot and freshly sharpened workpieces fired as projectiles or the cut-off wheel exploding. It’s all very exciting, and I risked Eve’s camera to bring you the action shot at the top.

The 1/4 inch baltic birch plywood is a sacrificial fence to support the workpieces and prevent them getting lodged or lost inside the saw’s table. It would have been better to afix the fences to the table and score them with a wood blade, but I was too lazy to change blades twice, and I like the smell of burning wood.

Now there's a pile of interesting objects. I ripped off the biggest burrs with pliers, and then dumped the whole pile in a rock tumbler along with some water, abrasive grit and all of the grinding filings, aniline dye powder, kosher salt, and some rectangular wooden beads that I'll describe in a later post. I like the antiqued finish that results, and the hardware helps with beating up the wooden beads.