Posts tagged as:

books

A Handful of Hammers

by Laurie Jane Kern on November 1, 2009

If its a gaggle of geese, a herd of cows, a pod of porpoises; what would a handful of hammers be??

My Hammers have finally arrived.

After my class with Deb (read the post Spoon-erism’s) I asked about an initial set of hammers to purchase and Deb sent back a list of 5 hammers: 1 planishing;  1 raising; and 3 sinking/forming hammers in a large, medium and small size.  I have put links to all 5 at the bottom of the post if you are interested.

I did some checking around on the web and Rio (where the links point to) really did have the best prices so I decided to bite the bullet and get them all at once. Then I thought that since Mary was in the class too; that she might want some hammers as well and this way we could get a quantity break (yes, there was quantity break when you bought TWO) and also save on shipping.

It took several days of emails back and forth to finalize what we both wanted as we also went for 2 of the large sandbags as these are useful for sinking. Unfortunately several of the hammers were on backorder. Two of the three hammers plus the sandbags arrived last weekend but the smaller sinking hammers were the ones on backorder.

And the remaining hammers arrived yesterday - I can now start whaling on some metal. And this leads me to the next part - projects. I will take some more classes with Deb, that is a given. But to give me practice in between those sessions I have bought the book “The Craft of Silversmithing” by Alex Austin.  The projects in the book work you through forging to sinking and raising.   I will be doing many of the projects in copper the first time for practice. This is so when I really mess up with odd placed ding’s or scratches I don’t have to worry about it.

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For a list of collective nouns look here:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Transwiki:List_of_collective_nouns_by_subject

For the hammers from Rio look here:

this is the raising hammer that is the largest one:

http://www.riogrande.com/MemberArea/ProductPage.aspx?assetname=112424&page=GRID&free_text%7c1255305206251=hammers&first_answer=46

this is the forming hammer that is the largest one:

http://www.riogrande.com/MemberArea/ProductPage.aspx?assetname=112408&page=GRID&free_text%7c1255305206251=hammers&first_answer=61

this is the forming hammer that is the medium size :

http://www.riogrande.com/MemberArea/ProductPage.aspx?assetname=112405&page=GRID&free_text%7c1255305206251=hammers&first_answer=76

this is the smallest sinking (forming) hammer:

http://www.riogrande.com/MemberArea/ProductPage.aspx?assetname=112399&page=GRID&free_text%7c1255305562251=forming+hammer

this is the planishing hammer :

http://www.riogrande.com/MemberArea/ProductPage.aspx?assetname=112402&page=GRID&free_text%7c1255305206251=hammers&first_answer=76

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A Home Study Course In Jewelry Making

by Laurie Jane Kern on July 12, 2009

It has now been 6 months since I caught the silver bug. During this time, I have learned to solder, saw, roll, and texture silver. I have also been making stones set in silver for pendants, bracelets and chains.

So what’s next….

Take classes at the Revere School in San Fran. [I wish!]

Actually I am saving to take some classes at the Revere school, but until then, I went looking for a way to teach myself some more technique and improve my skills. So my search led me to several online book stores, jewelry suppliers and many other websites to read reveiws. [This is what I have been doing while I wait for my shoulder to heal]

I found quite a few books that detail the skills but I was also looking for a book that would give me some projects where I could use these new skills. Once I found several books, I asked my local bookstore if they could get copies - I actually want to look at the books before I purchase them. They said there was no obligation to purchase any of them, and so they did order 4 books for me.

A few weeks later the books came in and I must have spent 2 hours going through all of them. I then bought 2 of the book:

The Complete Jewelry Making Course by Jinks McGrath

Jewelry Making: Tips and Tricks of the Trade by Stephen O’Keeffe

Since I am now doing flexibility and strengthening in PT, and I can do limited silver work, I am starting with the book by Stephen O’Keeffe and I hope to work through the entire book, with a new project every week or two.

I will be showing each project in the posts to come.

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Working on the Chain Gang

by Laurie Jane Kern on May 9, 2009

I have been working my way through Making Silver Chains: simple techniques, beautiful designs by Glen Waszek, and as I made each chain my soldering has gotten better: less messy (too much solder, bumps, voids, small gaps) and I am not soldering 2 or more links together or having to re-solder a link; and the time it takes to make a chain is shorter  not that one should rush it but all these little issues add up.

One of the first big ticket tools I bough soon after I started this journey was a Koil Cutter from Dave Arnes. This is one of the best investments I have made so far. If you still hand saw your links from coils you really have to get one of these set ups. I also bought the hand winder with the basic mandrel set. I have then supplemented the mandrels which are in .5 mm increments with bamboo knitting needles – double pointed needles to be exact. Why? A) Knitting needles can be found in .25mm increments. B) Bamboo allows for easy cutting and modification C) Double pointed (which are for socks) are the perfect length for winding coils on!

As I was saying….The instructions from the chain book are very easy to understand and the chains progress from easy to harder and more complex. The one problem I have is that the wire size for each project is listed as gauge size (ie 20g) but the physical size (in mm) is not the true gauge size, in either gauge system. The wire being used for the chains is an exact metric size. This difference does not affect some of the simpler chains but when you get to the more complex chains (loop-in-loop, idiots delight) it does matter.  To resolve this problem, I have taken the wire size and the winding mandrel size – both of which are in millimeters, from the book and calculated the actual aspect ratio of the link. I then use this aspect ratio to see if the true wire gauge and mandrel size should be adjusted.  The advantage of calculating the aspect ratio fore each chain also makes it easier when I want to change wire gauge and still keep the proportions of the chain.  [The programmer in me has built spread sheet so I convert from Aspect Ratio to Wire/Mandrel sizes by just a few key strokes!]

So what chains have I done?

Here they are in order, from left to right: Basic Trace Chain; Fetter and Link; Elongated Trace Chain;  Loop-in Loop and Wiggly - though I call it rosette. ( you will see some of these in the pictures of my pendants)

I am skipping the curb chains cause I just don’t like the look of them.

My next chain (s) will be the “Fancy” chapter. After that I hope to move onto the Classical Loop in Loop book.

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