Jewellery or Jewelry Tools

What you need to Get Started in Jewellery Making

by John Volney

Jewellery or jewelry making can be quite tool intensive but you can get started with very little and although jewellery or jewelry tools tend to be more expensive, because they are specialised, you can find makeshift equivalents in hardware & tool shops.

For example, instead of a specialist hammer that you would use for planishing, you can adapt a ballpane hammer by shaping & smoothing the hammering faces. Or round nosed pliers, that are commonly used to make jump rings, may be found very cheaply in the large hardware stores for a few dollars.

Rather than using a whole hand torch with a gas bottle set-up which requires a regulator and all that outlay. It’s common to use a handheld canister-style blow torch or even the mini refillable torches in which you use a cigarette lighter refill canister to fill the torch with gas. These cost tens of dollars instead of hundreds of dollars.

Then you need a bench. The important thing to remember with making jewellery or jewlry is that you need a good sitting position so that you’re not hunched over your work piece and straining your neck, back & shoulders. As an approximate guide; an easy way to gage the correct height for your bench is this. Sit in a normal chair with your back straight and then put your elbows on your work bench, with your hands flat in front of you. Your hands should be level with the middle of your chest.

Any high bench is suitable so long as you can clamp a jeweller’s peg to the front of it which will act as you main working area. From this peg you can fabricate, file and saw your jewellery piece.

You also need something to solder on, like a charcoal block or a heat resistant tile.

Other Jewellery or Jewelry Tools you will need are:

* Piercing Saw
* Tweezers and Sprung Tweezers (for placing solder, or holding jump rings while soldering)
* Boxwood Mallet
* Ring Mandrel
* Needle and Hand Files
* Emery Sticks & Emery Paper

Then you need a metal to make jewellery with which can be silver, gold, copper, brass etc. Also you’ll need solder and flux for soldering the metal together.

These basic jewellery tools will get you started in your new hobby of jewellery making.