BeadSmith 1.5mm Gothic Number Punch Set Review

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Chris

I always love when I go get the mail and there is some sort of little packet for me. Usually it is a tool, and today was no exception.

I had ordered some 1.5 mm number stamps, made by a company called “beadsmith”. I thought I might do a little review of them in case anyone else is interested.

Price: $7.99 aud plus $6.99 postage – bought on ebay. Quite cheap, however if you need to get both letters and numbers together, Beadsmith doesn’t seem to have a set including both. Therefore there are other cheaper alternatives. I already have a letter set, so numbers were all I needed.

Packaging: These punches come in a nylon pouch thing which looks great and gives you quick reference to find the number you need. Downsides being that they are open to the air, allowing more possibility of rust in humid locations, as well as taking up more space in the drawer. This nine stamp set takes up twice as much room in my drawer than my 26 stamp alphabet set.

Use: As soon as I had a look at the stamp, I knew I had work to do. All the stamps I have used in the past have a taper which comes up very close to the edge of the letter, allowing you to get a good idea where you are positioning your stamp. These however have a taper, and then quite a large flat area before the number- meaning that it is going to be very difficult to accurately stamp anything. I took a couple pictures comparing them to my alphabet stamps which are the same size. It is a pretty obvious difference.

The beadsmith punch on the bottom

Of course these punches are made of hardened steel, so I won’t be able to file this extra material away, I will have to grind it, being very careful not to overheat the metal and lose the temper. Or lose my temper.

Stamping: The impression left when using these stamps is quite good, they are sold as 1.5mm punches but just be aware that that is the measurement of the very centre raised part. In practice I measured the height of these stamped numbers at 2mm.

 

 

Conclusion: These stamps seem to be well made, and well presented, however I am having a hard time getting over the annoyance of that large flat table the number is sitting on. That is the deal breaker for me. If I was to make this purchase again, I would spend a little bit more and get a whole letter and number set that doesn’t have this problem.

I am just wondering if the larger 3mm size that Beadsmith sells is on the same dimension of round flat area…. That would be a little better as the number would take up a larger space on the stamp, making me happier.

And now, off to the grinder.

 

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Homemade Jewellery Tools: Giant Dapping Punch

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Chris

I loved my 1986 Pajero, it was a great vehicle with tons of space inside for picking up junk to bring home and tinker with. Unfortunately, as with all manmade things, it eventually decided to stop running, and so it was destined for the scrap metal heap.

In a moment of inspiration, before it went, I went through and took anything I could think of that might come in handy somewhere down the track, and one of these things was the tow ball.

Hmm, that towball looks incredibly similar to a dapping punch. A punch you would have to pay about $60 for if you bought it from a jewellery supply shop…..

Now, like almost all homemade tools, there is always something you need to change to get it working well. In this case, the towball had a little flat spot on the top of it. I got out my files (I guess I was too lazy to change the wheel on my grinding machine), and started filing the top to a rounder shape.

Homemade jewelry tools: dapping punch

So, here it is, as you can see, the top is not perfectly round, because of that flat spot, however, when I need perfect, I can use the side of the ball and use a rubber mallet to strike it. There are still a few rust pits, but so far they haven’t interfered with my work.

So, if you have an old tow ball hanging around, put it to use, Or, go pick one up from an auto wreckers for cheap. I think though that you might want to avoid ones that are chrome plated, as that creates a pretty hard surface to work with.

Also, I think it goes without saying, that once you have customised your towball in any way, don’t put it back on your car and try to tow something! That just wouldn’t be smart.

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Torches for making jewelry

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Chris

The other day I had a question about someone wanting to set up to start doing some hard soldering, so that got me thinking about torches. I have a few different torches that I use in my shop, so I figured I’d let you have a bit of a look. One thing when I set up this shop, is I really wanted to get away from bottled Oxygen, just because here in Australia, you have to rent the cylinders for about $300 a year, on top of whatever Oxy you use, in addition to the fact that there is the added danger of having a high pressure bottle of oxygen sitting around. Anyways here we go.

Air gas torchThis is the first torch I ever bought, before I knew anything about making jewellery. I went into a little rock shop and this is what he sold me for about $80. I also bought a sand casting kit and some alloy to cast, however the torch was never hot enough to melt the alloy, leading to much frustration in my basement.

So, this is basically the kind of torch you would find at a hardware store- you know the kind that just screw on to a little gas cylinder. The benefit of this is the fact that it has a hose which is pretty essential for soldering.

soldering torchIt hooks up to a propane tank, no oxy required, it just sucks in air and mixes it with the gas. Not a super hot torch, but fine for soldering most stuff. In fact this is the torch I have been using for soldering in my shop for the past year, and will continue to be until I get an oxygen generator, but more on that later. I have managed to use it to melt small amounts of silver, say 30 grams or so.

I reckon, if you are starting out and don’t have a lot of cash to spend, something like this would be a pretty good start. It is simple to operate, safe, and you are not too likely to overheat your metal. Probably the one annoying thing is that the gas comes out at quite a pressure and so has a tendency to blow on the pieces you are trying to solder, moving them around if they are small.

I have no idea the brand of my torch, but check this out, looks similar, but I think would be even better than mine.

turbotorch for jewelryOkay, next up, the Turbotorch by Thermadyne, which I think were previously Victor. I Love this torch. I worked for a casting company for a number of years and this was the torch they used to cast thousands of grams of precious metal every day. Funny thing is I don’t think it is at all common in the jewellery industry, it’s most common use is for plumbing.

Again, it runs on a single gas- mine runs on propane/LPG/MAPP, and you can buy a different one that runs only on acetylene. The tip (which is the whole long steel tube ) is interchangeable for different sizes of flames. The one I have on here is the T-6. That’s the one you need for this torch to shine.

thermadyne turbotorch T-6 My turbo torch is the workhorse of my torches. It’s what I use for annealing metal, melting for ingots or casting. I can melt up to 40 grams of copper in an open crucible- Copper’s melting point is 1080 C and the amount of silver I can melt is more limited by my crucible size. Silver melts at 960 C. The other great thing is there are a lot of these kicking around used, because they have been used for plumbing for quite a while. Even new they won’t break the bank, I paid $195 for a set that included torch, 2 tips, hose and regulator. Here’s what the set I bought looks like.

what torch do I buyOkay, last but certainly not least, the Smith Little Torch. Awesome. This is the torch you want if you are serious about making jewellery. Everywhere I have worked, this baby is the standard. It has exchangeable tips from really tiny to quite large. This is an Oxy/gas torch though so you need that bottled oxygen. And what you get by adding that oxygen is a much much hotter flame. Also you have so much more control over the flame because you can adjust how much oxy the torch gets, and therefore the heat of the flame.

smith little torch

I must say, as much as I have been getting by using my old single gas torch, I used one of these again the other day and it was soooo nice. You get to direct the heat exactly where you want it, and it is Hot!

So, here’s my plan to get back to using my little torch without having to do the Oxy cylinder thing. I am going to buy an oxygen generator, which is basically a machine which produces oxygen on demand. No more risks associated with stored oxygen, and no cylinder rental. Sweet. Though they are a bit pricey. I think around $2000. I have more research to do, but I’ll keep you posted what I end up with.

 

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Homemade Jewelry tools

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Chris

I was just thinking it would be good to do a few posts about making your own tools. Often with a bit of creativity we can make or adapt some pretty useable tools. Me, being as cheap as I am, have made quite a few tools for my workbench. Some of them I have fallen in love with and some did alright until I could afford the proper one, and some just plain old didn’t work.

I thought I’d get the ball rolling with the first jewellery tool I ever made. When carving a wax ring, the first thing you need to do is make the wax the right size for the finger. This means you need to take wax out of the inside of your ring tube. Matt makes a tool that is basically a tapered dowel with a blade in it that you just twist inside the ring and it shaves off wax until it is the right size. Pretty simple.

You can see in this photo, my homemade inside ring sizer compared to the real one. I took a stick and a hand plane and shaved it down to a taper, then I flattened one side of the taper (to give the wax that is being shaved off somewhere to go) then I found a strip of steel off my Dad’s old downhill skis- so old in fact that the edges were strips of steel that were held on with little tiny screws. I sharpened one of the metal strips up and inserted it in a groove that I cut with a handsaw. Voila! Not pretty but I have sized quite a few rings with it.

homemade jewellery tools

In case you are wondering, no I don’t use it anymore, I now use a homemade table that I attach to my flexshaft with a big wax cutting cylinder bur in it. Just that much quicker.

 

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Sometimes rubbish isn’t rubbish

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Chris

O.K., this may be a little off the topic of jewelry, but bear with me, it is very close to my heart.

Where I live in Australia, there is a phenomenon that happens once a year, which to me is akin to Christmas, and that event is “hard rubbish cleanup”. Over a period of 3 weeks, people are encouraged to make a big pile of junk in front of their house- all the stuff that is too large to fit in their rubbish bins. Then, council comes around and cleans it all up. It is a really good service, especially for those who have no way of getting their rubbish to the tip.

The only thing is, it’s a bit sad to see all the broken washing machines, lawnmowers, bikes, t.v.’s etc, that probably could be fixed, but because it is easier to just buy a new one, out it goes. We all like buying new things. We have been trained by the media to want new things, so when our 2 year old vacuum cleaner stops switching on, we have an excuse to buy a shiny new one. Awesome. but wasteful.

Anyways, enough of a rant about wise use of resources, the thing I like about hard rubbish cleanup is I get lots of almost working stuff for free. Then I fix it up. Here’s how I fared this year:

  • Petrol lawnmower-pullstart needed fixing
  • Petrol weed wacker- needed new line cartridge, which I scavenged from another one
  • pressure washer- needs new hose
  • computer monitor- replaced some capacitors to get it working
  • basketball hoop with backboard
  • 2 bikes for my son- one needed a new inner tube
  • mountain bike- needed a new front sprocket thing
  • carpet cleaner washer vacuum thing- working

So, next time you are going to throw something out, have a think about fixing it. If you don’t know how, google is your friend, do a search and I am sure you will find the answer. Let’s save the dump from one more piece of junk.

Just a quick word of caution, if it’s something electrical, make sure you have a good understanding of the dangers associated with electricity. Some electronics can hold a charge even when unplugged.

 

 

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