A piece of jewelry might appear fine on the workbench but feel uncomfortable to wear. The eye often catches the edge outline first, while your fingers register any burr, corner, or rough spot. A pendant blank, a ring band, or a component part does not need any elaborate embellishment to be more comfortable to wear. What it needs is some patience shaping, refining, testing, and cleaning the edge.
Do the filing before you polish. You might use sandpaper and a polishing cloth to bring up the sheen, but no amount of sanding and polishing will hide a bad edge. Use a file, or a needle file, to get the piece close to the size of the layout, and start working around the shape with light strokes. Maintain a constant forward direction, never a back-and-forth. If the piece is a corner, reduce your speed. Corners can easily file away, particularly a corner on a thin copper or brass practice sheet.
Use gentle pressure. Heavy pressure can leave flat spots, awkward angles, or a warped shape, which will be a challenge to correct. If you use light pressure, you have a greater chance to test the shape before you file away too much material, which is especially true of a ring band, because a hard filing stroke changes the width, which changes how the piece looks, and affects the comfort of the ring. For smaller curves and holes near a jump ring, a needle file is a better choice.
One good practice is to take a break to check the edge before you think you have to finish it. Brush off the metal filings, turn on the light, and use a finger to lightly test the edges inside and out. Don’t test the edge with pressure and don’t test it carelessly, because burrs can scratch skin. You’re searching for high spots, sharp corners, and areas where you have used too much filing pressure. For a pendant, also check the hole area, which is also subject to a rough edge that you might miss, since you’re likely filing to the jump ring hole.
When you have filed the edge well and are happy with it, sand it. Do not jump right to the grit of your choice. A fine grit will brighten, not remove, scratches. Take a sheet of sandpaper, fold it to reach the edge, and lightly sand all sides of the piece. For a ring band, be sure to check both edges, because the inner edge might be sharp to the touch and less visible to the eye. For an earring finding or component made from wire, also sand the end where the wire was cut with nippers to ensure it won’t catch or scratch.
Your piece should be comfortable, not just smooth. You also want it to be balanced. If you filed only one side of a pendant down too much, the edge might sit at a strange angle. If you file down just one side of a ring band, you may leave a thin spot that feels uncomfortable to touch. You may leave a rough, uneven loop that rubs oddly against a jump ring. Let filing be used to enhance, rather than erase the form, and take time to check for shape, comfort, and fit as you work toward finishing the surface.
Wipe down the piece when you have finished filing. Inspect the piece and test for smoothness by turning on the light and touching the edge from different angles. You don’t want a mirror shine. The goal is an edge that doesn’t surprise you with a catch, a corner, an uneven hole, or a spot that feels unfinished in comparison to the surrounding surface area. It is an edge like this that helps a piece of simple jewelry feel deliberate and put together before the work of adding texturing, inlaying, or decorating starts.