Are you interested in making your own jewelry at home? If you have this interest but don’t know where to learn this article today may help you with some of the more common questions. For example, what are the necessary tools for jewelry making? There are also some ideas about jewelry making and what are some common terms used in the jewelry making process.
What are the essential tools for jewelry making?
Cutting is a very important process in jewelry making. So you’d better prepare a professional jewelry saw to help you cut various metal parts. So what exactly are the criteria for evaluating a good jewelry according? A good jewelry saw is very efficient and fast when it comes to cutting metal and the metal being cut will not produce very obvious deformation. During the actual cutting process you may also need to use some specialized lubricants to help you with the metal cutting. Some of the more common lubricants used by jewelers include materials like beeswax and burr lubricants.
Pre-practice is important
If you’re just starting out learning something new you’re not going to be able to do it perfectly all at once. This is especially true for jewelry making. Even if you are a gifted player you still have to practice for a while before you can gradually get the hang of it. But you don’t have to engrave your jewelry every time after all the cost of this practice is also too high for the average person. I would rather suggest you to buy some non-precious metals as practice materials. Non-precious metals like copper or brass are very suitable.
Challenge yourself constantly
When you are just beginning to learn how to make jewelry, you may start by learning how to make some of the simpler styles of jewelry. For example, beading is the first piece that many novice jewelry makers start with. Then later, you might learn how to do some simple engraving on the jewelry, such as numbers or letters. When you’ve done these simple tasks hundreds or thousands of times, you can begin to pursue more difficult pieces. You can even try your hand at metal relief techniques as well as openwork engraving techniques. Constantly challenging yourself is a great way to improve your jewelry making skills.
Appropriate financial inputs
When you have been practicing for a while you may feel that you have improved your jewelry making skills. If you find that the jewelry making tools you originally purchased are no longer sufficient for your existing needs you may want to consider purchasing new jewelry tools. For example, you can use a specialized jewelry engraving tool instead of a purely manual engraving tool. You can also purchase more different sizes as well as different shapes of engraving tools to create more different styles of engraving patterns.
How to store metal properly
Most of the jewelry pieces on the market use metals like gold silver or platinum as raw materials for making jewelry. So it is also essential to learn how to store metals properly. Let’s take one of our more common called metals, silver, as an example. The method of storing other kinds of metals is pretty much the same. The texture of a metal like silver is relatively soft so a little carelessness is likely to deform it. When you buy a precious metal like silver the merchant will cover it with a film to prevent unnecessary damage to these precious metals during transportation. When you don’t intend to use these precious metals yet it’s best that you don’t lift this protective film just yet so that you can prevent the metal from being accidentally damaged or oxidized.
A few terms you should know
In the field of jewelry making, there are some specialized terms that might make you feel confused when you hear them for the first time. However, for many experts, they are as familiar as they can be. Learning a few specialized terms will not only expand your knowledge in the field of jewelry making, but also make it easier for you to communicate with jewelry experts.
- Alloy: An alloy is a metal that is made from two or more metals. Alloys are usually created to combine the strengths and weaknesses of two metals, or to produce a metal with a better color.
- Annealing: Annealing is the process of heating metal with a tool similar to a spray gun and waiting for the metal to cool down. The purpose of annealing is to soften the texture of the metal so that it can be treated in other ways.
- Fire Spot: The silver used to make jewelry contains a small amount of copper, which turns black or gray when heated. These gray or black marks are called fire spots.
- Sterling Silver: Like pure gold, commercially sold sterling silver is not 100% pure. This is because the texture of silver with a content of 100% is very soft and not suitable for jewelry making. Therefore, the net content of silver can be called pure silver as long as it reaches 99.9%.
- Stamping: Stamping is the use of an external force to press metal into a specific mold, leaving a pattern on the surface of the metal. The tools that may be used for stamping include punches as well as hammers. Of course, using a specialized metal stamping machine is still necessary if you are going for mass production.
- Work-hardening: After a metal has undergone a series of processes such as hammering or polishing, its texture becomes harder. That’s why it’s called work-hardening. If the metal is so hard that it is difficult to work, you can anneal it (as explained above).
- Carat: The carat is not just a unit of measurement used for diamonds or gemstones. Carat can also be used to describe the purity of gold and alloys. The higher the carat value, the higher the purity of the metal.
Of course here are just examples of some common terms if you want to know more professional knowledge I can recommend a few other channels for you to get information. You can go to buy some books about jewelry making you can also go to the relevant forums and other professionals together.
