A Few of my Favorite Jewelers Tools

Jewelers all have their own specialized tools and favorite pieces of equipment ranging from anything to a torch with changeable tips to a bead weaving loom.  My favorite tools tend to be metalforming, shaping and finishing tools like stamps, mandrels, a swage block, and lots of trusty hammers! 

Tools of the Jewelry Trade: Hammers

Time to share a few more tools of the jewelry trade today.  My all time favorite tool to use is a hammer!  There is something gratifying about pounding away at a piece of metal to create something beautiful. Collecting hammers can be a very addictive thing for a jeweler though as there are many different types for many different uses.

A jeweler can have a rawhide mallet, brasshead mallet, nylon mallet, chasing hammer, planishing hammer, riveting hammer, texturing hammer, ball-peen hammer and on..and on....and on....
Not only that, you can find all these hammers in many different sizes for many different projects.  It's hard to know when to stop collecting.

I typically use a plain old ball peen hammer for most of my work, a rawhide mallet for bending metal I don't want to mar, and occasionally texturing hammers.

Other tools like forming blocks, mandrels and anvils can extend the use of hammers even further.

Tools of the Jewelry Trade: Doming (dapping) Block

Have you ever wondered how jewelers get some amazing curved and domed shapes with their metal?  One way is to use what is know as a doming block or dapping block. Dapping basically means to dome metal.   Doming blocks come with various sized hemispheres and punches so you can adjust the the amount of curvature or dome metal of different sizes. Typically the metal is placed inside the block then the punch is placed on top and tapped with a hammer to achieve the desired dimension.  It takes a particular amount of force to get the metal to dome evenly without marring the surface.

Doming blocks come in both metal and wood. 

I use my dapping block to do all sorts of things, one of being my simple domed and textured disc necklaces.  In the case of these necklaces, the texture must be forged and the hole drilled before dapping:

Sterling Disc Necklace, Grass Texture

Find more jewelry made with a doming block and other jewelry techniques at Valerie Tyler Designs and Valerie Tyler on Etsy

Tools of the Trade: Jewelers Files

A jewelry designer always needs a good set of files in all sorts of shapes and sizes to get into every little nook and cranny of metal.

  

Also, don't forget my jewelry contest is still going on.  See the post below to see how you can enter to win.  I'll have another what to wear post coming up again soon as well.  Is there anything else you'd like to see?  Tell me in the comments below! 

Tools of the Trade: Jewelers Saw

Sharing more tools of the trade today! Today I'm showing you what is perhaps the first tool a jeweler ever picks up and learns and probably one of the most important. Some jewelers love it, some loathe it. (I tend to love it) This is my german jewelers saw. It is adjustable and uses the teeny-tiniest little blades. It's what I use to cut my metal whether I'm just creating a basic cuff or a pendant or I am sawing out intricate details. You'll notice the well worn bench block as well as bur-life (which I use to coat the blade to keep it from catching on the metal). 

Fawn Earrings

I've frequently had people assume my silhouettes are laser cut, but in fact they are all entirely hand-cut from sheet metal.

Tools of the Trade: Texturing and Design in Jewelry

Today I'm going to continue my tools of the trade series and share something else I use to create the jewelry you see in Valerie Tyler Designs.  These are some examples of my design punches I use for texturing (also known as chasing / repousse tools) These are very similar to stamps, and in fact I often use steel stamps as well to create the textures in my work. Texturing metal is probably my favorite process I employ in my studio.  There is something gratifying about applying force and seeing metal transformed into something very different from a smooth surface.  I tend to like how a lot of the textures I use mimic natural surfaces like birch bark or small pebbles in a stream. 

Using tools like the ones above I can create pieces like these completely by hand:

Shield Necklace

Pebbles Teardrop Earrings

Sometimes similar textures are created using rolling mills but I tend to prefer the control of creating each mark by hand. 

Tools of the Trade : What I use to make jewelry

There are so many different techniques and tools to use to make jewelry.  Today I'm sharing one of my favorite tools which is my doming block.  I use the marvelous block and dapping punches along with a hammer for rounding and doming metal.  The various sizes of punches allow me to dome tiny pieces as well as larger pieces.  It's a handy tool for making jewelry much more three dimensional.