Roller Mill Texture Paper by Metal Designz

Follow these easy steps to get a nice deep texture into your metal! We recommend rolling the metal and texture paper with a piece of Water colour paper (140 pound) - Found at any craft or paper supply shop - We bought a whole book of paper from Staples. This extra piece of paper helps protect your metal from any marks or debris that might be on your mill, and it also helps keep the metal from curling as the metal stretches! Your rollers are STEEL, so you don’t have to protect them from softer metal or paper.

1. Make sure the metal you want to texture is FULLY ANNEALED, and pickled and clean. Silver should come out of the pickle pot looking white. If it is shiny – Anneal Again! Any imperfections in the metal can affect the outcome. We recommend Sterling Silver & Copper as they both work beautifully. I personally Roll Niobium and Titanium with great success. If using harder metals such as Brass or Nickel, make sure they are well annealed as those metals can be harder to imprint. For best success - Silver & Copper are best!

2. Cut the metal to size. Cut your paper slightly larger - Leaving a small edge of extra texture... in case the paper slides while you are rolling. Cut a piece of heavy water colour paper just larger than the metal as well. LARGE pieces (like the full sheet of paper) will not roll as successfully as smaller pieces... 1” x 3” works great even on Economy Mills. You want the metal as narrow as possible feeding into the Mill. Wide pieces won’t have as much pressure.

3. Sandwich the metal between the water colour paper, and the texture paper.

4. Set your mill so that it is tight and gives you good resistance as you roll the piece through. Use the depth tester pieces to practice and make sure you have the mill set to the right thickness. The more resistance or the tighter you have your mill set, the deeper the texture will imprint. If your mill is set too tight, you will warp the pattern and the metal ... and it will be VERY difficult to turn the handle. It's important that you practice with your mill to get this tension correct. Economy Mills generally don’t have reduction gears. So you will have to turn your handle harder to get the best impression. A higher quality mill (Durston, Pepe, Cavalier) those mills will be easier to crank, while getting a nice deep pattern. YOU MUST EXPERIMENT AND MASTER YOUR OWN MILL!! If you are using 140 pound water colour paper, an easy way to set your mill for any metal thickness is tighten your rollers so the metal can just be pushed in between the rollers alone. Once you add the texture paper and the backing paper - this will be a PERFECT tension!

5. Insert your metal and paper sandwich into the mill. Slowly turn the handle and make sure you keep a consistent speed as you turn. This will create a nice even texture pattern. Hold the sandwiched metal as long as you can with your fingers so the paper doesn't move and shift the pattern.

6. Your piece of metal will be textured and might need to be gently flattened with a nylon mallet and steel block. The texture pattern is now exhausted. It can only be used one time.

THERE IS BASICALLY TWO REASONS WHY THE PAPER DOES NOT LEAVE A GOOD IMPRESSION – Metal is not annealed well enough - OR your Mill isn’t TIGHT enough J It can take a little practice! Economy mills tend to warp longer pieces into a curve. Success with the 2.5”X9” bracelet papers requires to you to insert the metal as straight as possible, and allow some extra texture on either side of the metal in case it curves.

We welcome your feedback and comments and suggestions for improving our paper. If you have any concerns with leaving us A 5-STAR Rating on etsy – Please let us know and give us a chance to work with you. These ratings really help our small business and we do our best for you! We can also cut your custom textures. You can send files to laser@metaldesignz.com and what size you would like the pattern printed at. We do not charge a set up fee – Same cost as our designs!

Thanks for your business and support. We are a small family based business and we are here to do our best for you! sales@metaldesignz.com

Shelley & Joseph Hubbs

1-866-349-RING (7464) https://www.facebook.com/lasertexturepaper -- PLEASE JOIN US ON FACEBOOK!! We post our new designs and promos!! Also new -- Check Metal Designz on YouTube for videos on how to use your papers!