Jeweling Aluminum! How-To Video Tutorial for a Great Looking Surface Finish!

hi folks welcome to another episode of NYC CNC today we're going to talk about drooling Julian is one of my favorite techniques for metal finishing it is a very cool and unique look to it and it's super easy to do you may recognize Julian from fire trucks where they use it to mask the scratches that would normally be incurred when they're using the equipment and it's also very common on firearms contrary to popular belief it's not just an aesthetic process for instance with firearms the process of Julian can actually help scuff up the surface a little that can help it retain all better then a polished metal surface the process of Julian is just overlapped circles and you do this with some sort of an abrasive tool if you're working with large projects use large brushes like this paint removal tool or the scotch brite brush if you're working on super small parts you could use something like this quarter inch abrasive bit it could be running a drill press even a hand drill or a dremel again you want high rpms you could even use a pencil eraser this works fine if you're using a smooth tool like a piece of rubber you'll need some sort of an abrasive I personally prefer this 90 grit lapping compound I've also got some clover compound here that is about 120 grit you can even use toothpaste yes toothpaste is an abrasive yes it will work if you're Julian a really hard material or you want to make a really deep scrape use a tool like this it has thick wire brushes I use a zip tie to keep the wires from fraying out and so that the tool holds it's circular pattern I do a lot of aluminum and my go-to choice is to use the 90 grit compound and I stick a piece of half-inch 60 durometer rubber rod inside a drill press this bar costs about five or six bucks and should last you a lifetime just cut a piece off and stick in a drill chuck let's go ahead and jool this this is a piece of 6061-t6 aluminum I've milled the surface off you can see there are some toolpath marks I'm going to use some 600 grit sandpaper to smooth this down the smoother the surface you start with the better your Julian will look oK we've got this sanded down let's head over to the CNC mill we've got the part clamped in the vise on my CNC mill if you're a longtime viewer this may look a little different and that's because I've got the mill table and vise everything covered to keep it protected this content we're going to use is nasty stuff you do not want this getting any way in or near the your machine the device the fixture table the mill bed etc you're just going to use a toothpick and apply some of this stuff onto the surface of the part I like working with this 90 grit stuff because you want it a little bit thinner you can always mix it down with something like a motor oil where is if you've got thinner stuff 120 grit or 220 grit you can't really make it thicker I asked her like this particular type I got it from McMaster because it doesn't tend to fly all over the place so I wrote a little G code program we'll take a look at the code right here it dwells for five seconds every time it is effectively a drill command [Music] okay part is done and taken out of the vise now the one downside but of using this type of an abrasive lapping compound is that it's oil base so it it's kind of nasty stuff it doesn't clean up really easily you ten do you have to use like a paint thinner you also want to be careful not to wipe it all over the face of the part now or you're just going to be scratching into the nice circles you just made so I'm going to take a toothpick and try to just sort of coax off the top and the sides of it and then under some running water I'll wash off the rest okay there it is I'm very happy with that but if you're saying to yourself right now wait a minute I don't have a CNC mill do not worry let's take a look at doing this on the drill press Julian on the drill press works just fine it seems female does have a few advantages it's obviously more accurate in terms of creating the pattern it's also more consistent with the pressure on each swirl pattern I'm just putting the part in a vise what you should do if you'd like to get an accurate pattern particularly over a large piece is to clamp a straightedge down preferably a ruler and use that straightedge with distance markings to more accurately measure your crossover so just like on the CNC mill I'm just going to spread some grit over the part here and then we're going to jewel it up if you're using a drill press with an adjustable speed or belts you'll want to run this on the highest setting possible flip it on [Music] alright again let's use our toothpick to take some of the excess off and I'm gonna go clean this off with some water and let's take a look and it looks great as you can see the pattern is perfectly fine the swirls look just as good as normal it does take a little bit longer on a drill press a little bit more patience and like I said clamp a straight edge down with a ruler so you can measure most accurately but again a quick and inexpensive way to put a really cool surface finish on your parts that's all folks thanks you

Channel: NYC CNC

Views: 46,486

Rating: 4.8735633 out of 5

Keywords: aluminum, machine, shop, hobby, jewel, fire, truck, gun, bolt, tool, trick, tip, finish, polish, nyccnc, cnc, drill, press, milled, tormach, sand, scotchbrite, lap, lapping, compound, cratax, enging, tuning, Damascene, Mottling, DIY, metal finishing, metal

Id: -XrFnVB23_g

Length: 6min 25sec (385 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 12 2012