Drugstore Tool
Posted by Leah on Nov 3, 2006
Often, tools intended for one thing work really well for another, unintended use.
One of my favorite examples of this is using the fom padded fingernail files sold at drug stores for smoothing metal, especially wire ends. They come in several different grits that correspond pretty closely to the grits I would normally use in jewelry applications. For smoothing rough wire ends, coarse grits (80 to 150) are great, and for finer sanding, they come in 200 up to around 600, *and* the multi-surface nail buffiers often have ultra-fine grits much like the ones used for polishing metal.
It’s hard to beat drugstores on price or convenience - there is one less than two blocks from my house, and another about five blocks from my studio, so I’m never far from a source of inexpensive sanding sticks.
