Profession jewellery polisher
Jewellery polishers ensure that finished jewellery pieces are cleaned by customer demand or prepared for sale. They may also perform minor repairs. They use either hand tools such as files and emery paper buff sticks and/or hand held polishing machines. They also use mechanised polishing machines such as barrel polishers.
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Personality Type
- Realistic / Artistic
Knowledge
- Buffing motions
The different processes, or motions, used in polishing, depending on the desired end result concerning the level of smoothness and shininess of the metal workpiece: cut motion or colour motion.
- Gemstones
Types of minerals or petrified materials that are cut and polished for use in jewellery, classified according to type, characteristics, and value.
- Jewellery processes
Materials and processes involved in creating jewellery items like earrings, necklaces, rings, brackets, etc.
Skills
- Use jewellery equipment
Handle, modify, or repair jewellery-making equipment such as jigs, fixtures, and hand tools such as scrapers, cutters, gougers, and shapers.
- Polish gemstones
Use polishing agents or fine grades of diamonds to remove small amounts of stone in order to get a shiny surface that will improve light refraction or reflection.
- Ensure conformance to jewel design specifications
Examine finished jewellery products to ensure that they meet quality standards and design specifications. Use magnifying glasses, polariscopes or other optical instruments.
- Clean jewellery pieces
Clean and polish metal items and pieces of jewellery; handle mechanical jewellery-making tools such as polishing wheels.
- Sand gemstones
Use abrasives to remove scratches and irregularities on gemstones. The abrasives used for this process are finer than the ones used for grinding gemstones. The sanding process used to create flat surfaces on a stone, such as facets, is called lapping.
- Grind gemstones
Shape gemstones using equipment such as diamond or silicon carbide wheels to obtain a rough though more regular form called the preform.