Jewellery Blog Carnival - July

My favourite manual tool.

Welcome to my piece of the web. Once a month a whole bunch of metal smiths write a short aticle on a given topic and this months topic is "My favourite manual tool." You can visit each artist's blog and have a good nose. You'll find the links below.......

So what is my favourite manual tool?

Got to be quite simply the hammer. I have a whole bunch of them and they all have their own little specific purpose. You can't just go grabbing the nearest hammer "oh no!!". You have to use the right hammer for the job.

I reckon on every single commission I make, I use a hammer at least once, so it has to be the most valueable tool.

For instance you can take a flat piece of metal and turn it from this;




























The small curved cone was made to replace a broken stem on a 130 year old trophy.

So whilst it isn't a very sexy tool, it can produce fabulous results.

Here are the other bloggers, go have a look to see what their special tool is

http://lorahartjewels.blogspot.com/

http://www.creativetexturetools.com/news/

http://www.kaskiles.com/

http://www.fleseri.com/blog/

http://angelacrispin.canalblog.com/

http://penny-candies.blogspot.com/

http://gentrydesignco.typepad.com/jewelrydesignchronicles/

http://www.lorrene-davis-designs.blogspot.com

As promised here is the picture of my DIY file storeage compartment.

I had a small void next to my jewellers bench, so I cut 16 x 9inch lengths of plastic drainage pipes, which fit snuggly into the void.

The pipes are the sort that take your waste water away from under the sink. They are roughly 1 1/2 inch in diameter.

They make perfect compartments for files and sanding sticks. Although I have fit them inside a box on my purpose built bench. You could as easily glue them together and have them sit on top of your bench either horizontally, at an angle or vertically.

I have got another fab tip which I will save tomorrow for anyone who has a pendant motor/ dremmel drill. You will think it is just the bees knees and it is so simple.