About the art of lapidary (gemstone cutting and faceting), and also a list of terms that are commonly used in the industry.

When you start working with wire, you need tools. Often, I am asked, "What tools do I need for wire-wrapping?" There is a huge range of j...

free tutorials or how tos on jewelry making

List of goldsmithing tools, jewelry making tools and jeweller tools, as well as information on their uses and where to buy jewellery making supplies & equipment.

It is possible to get started metalsmithing at home with a few simple tools. Best of all: they're inexpensive and don't take up a ton of space - meaning you can stash them in a box or drawer so they're out of the way when you're not using them! Instead of being something big and scary that requires a torch or workshop, you can actually make metal jewelry at your kitchen counter at the end of a long day. (Think of it as sewing's edgy older sister.)

Learn how to make natural stone jewelry and drill your own stones. List of supplies and easy step-by-step instructions.

Recently, I put together this "must-have" tool guide for new jewelry designers! This guide is for beginners, but we experienced f...

List of goldsmithing tools, jewelry making tools and jeweller tools, as well as information on their uses and where to buy jewellery making supplies & equipment.

Ever wondered what are the must-have tools and accessories to furnish your studio? In this pdf, Lucy Walker shares all her best advice so you can save money!

Cool Tool: The Mandrel Whether you’re an experienced metalsmith or just beginning your jewelry-making journey, one of the most useful tools you can have on your bench is a set of mandrels. A good mandrel

Learn to use power tools to accomplish any jewelry task in the studio. From cutting and drilling to texturing and polishing,they'll make your work easier.

Learn everything you need to know about jewelry-making tools in this exclusive, FREE guide that contains explanations to over 125 jewelry tools and more!

Recently, I put together this "must-have" tool guide for new jewelry designers! This guide is for beginners, but we experienced f...

I hope if you’ve been hanging around Flamingo Toes for a little while, you’ve seen that anyone can make jewelry. I sure try to make the tutorials here as easy to understand and simple to follow as possible. If you have been wanting to give it a try, I’d like to encourage you – it’s ... Read More about Must Have Tools for Making & Designing Jewelry

List of goldsmithing tools, jewelry making tools and jeweller tools, as well as information on their uses and where to buy jewellery making supplies & equipment.

Hey, Hey, Have you seen all of the infographics on Pinterest lately? If not, they are basically a visual guide to learning something. They are perfect for me because as you could probably guess I am a visual learner. I have found myself pinning a lot of them lately. At the same time, I have been designing loads of jewelry. My jewelry designs require pretty basic skills to put together. I had an ah ha moment and realised I should make some infographics for the basics. I made them for you so you could print them out and hang them on your studio wall or you could pin them on one of your Pinterest boards. Either way they are pretty little reminders of the basics. This one is going to be my new computer wallpaper, because when I am ordering beads online I NEVER have it in my head how big beads are in millimeters. I made it so if you click on the image, it will enlarge and you can print it on a single piece of paper. Plus if you're reading this at my blog, you can run your mouse over the top for a pin it button. Enjoy! Let's Connect, Visit my Website, Etsy Shop, Blog, Facebook

We have tips and advice about the different types of wedding rings, diamonds & gemstones. Great Wedding bands for men, and more!

It is possible to get started metalsmithing at home with a few simple tools. Best of all: they're inexpensive and don't take up a ton of space - meaning you can stash them in a box or drawer so they're out of the way when you're not using them! Instead of being something big and scary that requires a torch or workshop, you can actually make metal jewelry at your kitchen counter at the end of a long day. (Think of it as sewing's edgy older sister.)

Just posting about last weekends show and some great tools I have been using lately. The show was good. Nice to see other artists and get out of the snow bank and socialize a little. It’s bee…

If you're a beginner, check out my list of wire-wrapping tools and supplies that you'll need to get started.

Making jewelry has never been simpler. There is plenty of jewelry making tools for beginners on the market. Let's start making your own homemade jewelry.

When beginning a new craft, such as beading, it is a good idea to identify and purchase at least the basic tools and supplies so that you can get started creating. This is a guide about basic tools and findings for beading.

No, not a dance routine on Strictly Come Dancing, but a way of making your own screws and threads for connecting parts made not of metals or for parts that need to be removable / interchangeable. Here is how to understand it all and how to make them, it's a lot of information so hold on tight! I'd often wanted to know how to sink my own threaded hole and make a little threaded screw to fit into it. I'd read books that were old, out-of-print and new, but they all seemed to give me only half the information I needed. I looked on websites and found the information to be partial then found a variety of charts and diagrams on the internet, all meaning little to me. I've been asked so many times how to use these things and asked so many times how you're supposed to know which bits to use with what parts....that I bit the bullet and bought a set for about £45 ($69) in order to learn. Actually finding a complete set that I could afford or didn't look cheap and badly made, was another mission in itself. So I'm sharing what I've learned with you; Above are the 4 pieces that I want to screw together. Two pieces of copper, one of old tins, one of perspex. BA Size Diameter of wire (mm) Diameter of wire (inches) Diameter of hole (mm) Diameter of hole (inches) 12 1.3 0.051 1.05 0.041 10 1.8 0.071 1.4 0.055 8 2.25 0.089 1.8 0.071 6 2.85 0.112 2.3 0.091 5 3.2 0.126 2.65 0.104 4 3.6 0.142 3.0 0.118 3 4.1 0.161 3.45 0.136 2 4.8 0.189 4.0 0.157 1 5.4 0.213 4.5 0.177 0 6.0 0.236 5.1 0.201 ISO thread size Diameter of wire (mm) Diameter of wire (inches) Diameter of hole (mm) Diameter of hole (inches) M1.6 1.65 0.065 1.26 0.050 M1.8 1.85 0.073 1.45 0.057 M2.0 2.05 0.081 1.6 0.063 M2.5 2.6 0.102 2.0 0.079 M3.0 3.1 0.122 2.5 0.098 M3.5 3.6 0.142 2.9 0.114 M4.0 4.1 0.161 3.3 0.130 M4.5 4.6 0.181 3.8 0.150 M5.0 5.1 0.201 4.2 0.165 M6.0 6.1 0.240 5.1 0.201 Above are two charts, one of which you will need to refer to depending on whether you work in "BA" or "ISO" threads. As I understand it, the ISO system is what is most commonly used today across a wide variety of applications, BA is an older system but the main difference is that the depth of cut and angle of the thread is less extreme than on an ISO thread....so if a screw is a little helter skelter at the fairground and the slide twisting around the tower is the thread itself, then how much the twisting slide actually sticks out from the tower and the steepness gradient of the slide, is known as the "pitch". The pitch is smaller on BA threads, which are used on really tiny srews like those on your spectacles. This is more appropriate apparently for using with soft metals like silver, as the pitch is less fragile (doesn't stick out so much and less steep) so less liable to twist or shear off. I could not find a BA set that I could afford so I thought "what the heck" shrugged my shoulders and went for an ISO set. You can buy taps and dies seperately, they are fragile and easy to break but I had no idea what I wanted, neither could I find a tap & die wrench to purchase seperately. Here are the dimensions of the pieces, I'm using ISO. I had some more or less 2mm wire in stock so looking at the chart (I've highlighted the bit I looked at) I could see which tap and die size I needed to select. The wrench came with a circular 'washer' which is removable and is for holding the smaller taps and dies. I have removed the washer (shown above with a smaller size die so you can see what I mean) and inserted the M2.0 that I needed into one of two tap adapters that came in the set (look again at my first picture at the top of this post, there are 9 dies, 18 taps {2 of each}, 2 tap adapters, 1 wrench and a die adapteradapter (one adapter is for the M1 sizes and the other is for the M2 sizes), then making sure it's in nice and vertical, tighten the screw with a flat-head screwdriver. Next, I took the copper disc that I wanted the thread cut into and taped it onto a block of wood. I had previously drilled a hole with a 1.6mm drill bit (see the chart again). The metal part should not be less than 2.5mm thick, this piece was about 3mm thick. Slowly and carefully I turned the wrench clockwise with a little pressure after having first applied a bit of lubrication on the tap (I only had wax but oil is more appropriate). I was careful to keep the tap perpendicular to the piece I was cutting into. I turned one whole rotation then turned back out half a rotation to let out the swarf. I kept on going in this way until I had cut a thread right through the disc.....it took about 5 minutes. Hopefully, if you look closely you can see the thread cut into my disc. Next, I needed to cut my wire so that it became a screw. I picked up the M2.0 die (see the chart). You can see how one side has the size printed onto it and the other might be plain flat or dished. Notice the notch in one side of the disc for locating against the screw in the wrench. I needed the adaptor for holding the die which just pops in. I inserted the die and tightened the screw, you can see above the printed numbers just peeking out from under the adaptor. Notice that tightening the screw would make the centre of the 'clover leaf' squeeze down to a smaller size, the centre is where the cutting thread is. Next I inserted the wire into a vice, making sure the wire was vertical. Then with the printed side of the die facing up I fitted the other side onto the wire in the centre of the 'clover leaf'. This side of the die hole is slightly champfered to accept the wire. Then I started to turn the wrench clockwise and after quite some considerable time, got absolutely nowhere. After lots of faffing about trying different things and wondering if the die, my digital callipers or the chart was inaccurate, I found in one of my books the instructions...."the wire needs to be just about able to fit into the die before you tighten the screw"......not exactly engineering accuracy talk, so I drew the wire down to a narrower gauge which just about almost not quite fit the die, down to 1.80mm, even though the chart says the wire needs to be 2.05mm. Trying again, the die cut beautifully, one turn of cutting, half a turn back to remove swarf and lubrication on the wire...over and over again. I still don't know why the original thickness of wire was too much, as all charts have the same number info on them, perhaps I squeezed my callipers too tight on the wire.... You can see that I've cut quite a way down the wire and the start of the wire is now screwed up out of the top of the die. Above you can clearly see the wire has now got a thread cut onto it. How about that! I sawed a section of the wire off leaving an uncut couple of mm at one end then soldered the uncut end to a head. I soldered that end on with a gap of no thread because I didn't want solder flowing up the thread and filling it up. The other end I slightly rounded off with a file and emery paper so that it feeds nicely into the threaded hole we cut earlier. A moment of triumph, the screw threads nicely into the disc. It threads through an uncut hole in my bit of dished tins material.... ...and through my perspex disc which is also cut with a threaded hole, then into a threaded disc of metal at the back. Hurrah! Great. But what if you want to cut a threaded hole which doesn't go all the way through your material? You'd be using a thicker material for starters. The hole would be known as a "blind" hole. Ah, well you can see that the taps I have used are tapered, so how would they cut all the way down to the 'bottom' of a hole? You would need to buy taps called 'bottoming' taps, also known as 'plug' taps in the same size as the tap you use to cut most of the hole, so in the case above I would have had two or three plug taps in size M2.0, each tap would have a taper which is less severe than the one you use before it and so gradually cuts a thread into the last few mm of the hole you have drilled. I have seen taps for sale called "plug taps", so if I ever use any of these I will show you what happens.

To make great jewellery, you need good tools. These are the pliers I use and recommend as a basic jewellery toolkit for beginner jewellery makers.

Comparing your jeweler's saw to another tool that you might be tempted to use instead: tin snips. (Also called metal snips or metal shears.) Snips are pretty ubiquitous when it comes to DIY and home projects involving metal, but once you get the hang of your jeweler's saw, you'll be inclined to keep your snips in your tool box from here on out.

List of silversmithing tools, silver working tools and silver jewellery making tools, as well as information on what they do and where to buy.

JewelryMonk is dedicated to training jewelry makers in the basic and advanced techniques of jewelry making.

How to Drill Pebbles & Stone with Eternal Tools in 3 easy steps. We explain the tools and equipment you will need, along with an easy to follow step by step guide. Learn to drill holes in garden, river and beach pebbles and make some interesting jewellery, crafts and decorative home wares.

What's the next jewelry-making technique you want to master? For me, it's setting stones. I want to master the whole process--cut the stones, make the settings, and then properly set the stones. I've done it

List of easy silversmithing projects for beginners. Beginner friendly silversmithing project ideas that can help you get started.

What Are Needle Files? How do you use needle files? What do the different shapes do? Why choose Swiss Needle files? An essential tool for every craftsperson. These steel files are used for filing, shaping and smoothing metal, wood, plastics, ceramic, glass, stone and polymer clay.

It is possible to get started metalsmithing at home with a few simple tools. Best of all: they're inexpensive and don't take up a ton of space - meaning you can stash them in a box or drawer so they're out of the way when you're not using them! Instead of being something big and scary that requires a torch or workshop, you can actually make metal jewelry at your kitchen counter at the end of a long day. (Think of it as sewing's edgy older sister.)

It is possible to get started metalsmithing at home with a few simple tools. Best of all: they're inexpensive and don't take up a ton of space - meaning you can stash them in a box or drawer so they're out of the way when you're not using them! Instead of being something big and scary that requires a torch or workshop, you can actually make metal jewelry at your kitchen counter at the end of a long day. (Think of it as sewing's edgy older sister.)