Sunray finishing is a type of finishing used mainly on the dials and the ratchet and crown wheels. It is a type of graining where the lines go from one central point outwards as do the rays of the sun.
To make the version above, I used a Dremel rotary tool, a grinding wheel and a turning table. The coarseness of the grinding wheel will determine how visible the individual lines will appear. In this case, I was using a grit 80 grinding wheel of 75mm in diameter. You might notice the disc pressed against it, this is because I don’t have the correct mandrel and therefore had to improvise by using a disc each side of the wheel.
To hold the piece of brass in place, I used super glue just on the sides that is easily removed with acetone. I tried with shellac first but it did not work. I did not need perfect precision in this case so I did everything myself by hand. I held the rotary tool in one hand and lowered it onto the brass while turning the table with the other hand, trying to avoid a jerky motion. However, to get better results, you could use the Dremel workstation 220 and ask a second person to turn the table to have a constant rate of rotation.
