Polished Shank Benders

By Steve Satow

These convex/concave ring forming pliers will mar the heck out of shank material the way they are now.  The deep grooves they make will take forever to burnish out of platinum or will need to be filled with a laser.  Trying to file or sand them out will result in substantial metal loss.

A look at the edge of these pliers shows sharp edges and inside jaw surfaces that need polishing.

Here we see a line drawn in black where we need to grind back the edge to a smooth radius to help prevent the marring.  After a rough grinding we smooth the metal and high polish the inside and sides of the jaws.  This helps keep any patterns from transferring to the platinum.

This is a view of the finished bottom jaws.

This is a view of the finished top jaws.  Try them on a piece of fine silver and make any additional grinding necessary to make them as mar proof as possible.